13 days ladies and gentlemen

It is a strange and somewhat exhilarating thing when one considers the fact that we are a mere 13 days away from electing the next President of the United States.

At this point, I hope for their own sakes that the conservatives lose. I want to see the utter destruction of the Far Right along with social conservatism as we now know it and the runaway supply side economics and trickle down economics that are simply not working.

I want to see a simpler, fairer tax code emerge, and better, more straightforward regulations. I'm not a protectionist but I also realize that we can do more as a country to save American jobs. We need not enrich the investment class while bankrupting everyone else. We can still be a part of globalization.

I want to see the utter destruction of the Far Left, too, and I think nobody will do that better than Obama. A McCain presidency will only invigorate them. I look forward to a New Center. That's my own personal pipe-dream.

Bill Maher: Snobby, liberal, and not very funny...

I was watching the Daily Show the other night with my wife and the guest was liberal snob, Bill Maher. Maher's snobby version of liberalism was on full display, probably encouraged by the snobby brand of liberalism that the Daily Show has become. Don't get me wrong, it was always a liberal show, but Stewart used to be more even-handed in his attacks, and much of the focus of the Daily Show was at first on the mainstream media. Now the show feels rather more mainstream than it used to.

In any case, Maher said some utterly absurd things. Like, for instance, that America is divided between those of us who want a "progressive, European style country" and those of us who are "rednecks." Plain and simple. In Maher's world, like in the worlds of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, the world is black or the world is white. We are right or we are wrong.

Nuance is for rednecks and girly men only.

To Stewart's credit he appeared somewhat taken aback by this, and offered up a flimsy example of his own childhood. Maher responded with more blatant snobbery. It's all in the videos below.

They had him on to discuss Religulous, Maher's new documentary, which focuses on slamming religion and religious people. I'm an atheist, so I guess I should feel immune but I don't. I don't agree with militant or fundamentalist anything. I despise Sarah Palin's brand of Christianism, but I also feel that to preach a dogmatic atheism is doing the cause of atheism a disservice.

Don't get me wrong. In my mind, religion (despite its historical importance and so forth) is basically BS. There may be a God, but even so, organizing such speculation into a larger tribe seems kind of silly, or perhaps dangerous. The organization of religion should come under fire. But religious people have every right to believe what they do, just as atheists, Deists, and agnostics have every right not to (depending on how you look at it).

Essentially, I don't believe it is religion holding us back, but fundamentalism, and so when atheists start speaking dogmatically I worry that the same pitfalls await them. There is much of value in the writings of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the rest of those atheist writers. Ann Althouse has a good post on "contempt" up at her blog, which goes into more detail on the subject of atheism.

She writes:

In any case, why can't a comedian or a polemicist deal in contempt?

It's not the only approach, but it's an approach. (And I don't think "contempt" is at all the right word for Dawkins, whose "God Delusion" I've read. It fits Hitchens -- and I've read "God Is Not Great." I haven't read the Harris book, but I don't think it's contemptuous.)

I suppose contempt is an acceptable form of critique. George Carlin was certainly funny in his attacks on religion. Funny is good. Funny contempt is good. Thoughtful, thought-provoking contempt is good (i.e. Hitchens). But contempt that tries to be funny and fails? That's bad.

So is this my complaint? Maher is an idiot because his liberal snobbery doesn't hit the mark--despite his trying to be funny, he just comes across as arrogant. For all his talk of progressivism he instead sounds hollow, prejudiced, and full of shit. If he were actually funny, or actually interesting maybe the rest could be forgiven.

As it stands, well, even my pretty liberal wife said she couldn't stand him.

Rosie

Four reactions to the debate

Culture 11 is a relatively new, and very modern Conservative website. I actually like it a great deal, and plan to spend more time there in the future. I especially like this new four-part editorial

David Kuo writes:

Today’s conservatism is lost. It is so lost it doesn’t actually know if it lost at sea, lost in space, or lost in a desert. It lacks moral courage, a philosophical core, and intellectual certitude. McCain’s defeat will help change all of that because his defeat will lead to a debate within conservatism unlike anything in several decades.

Peter Suderman writes:

Obama, as always, appeared sophistacted, urbane: He held the mic in that delicate, refined way of final-level American Idol contestants, and constantly seemed to be holding an imaginary pen in the air and trying to visualize it. He will solve America’s energy crisis with telekinesis.

McCain, on the other hand, came off as less the high-toned maverick and more the self-satisfied frat-boy goof: He started several of his answers with an Igor-via-Beavis-and-Butthead chuckle: heh-heh, heh-heh. Sorry dude: not funny.

One thing that’s clear from this debate is how little there is to John McCain and his campaign.

Conor Friedersdorf writes:

One striking thing is what didn’t happen. After days of staring into television cameras telling America that Obama is a closet terrorist sympathizer, Senator McCain blinked when they were face to face. How will Americans who watched those speeches and ads — and then watched this debate — react? My guess is that they’ll find the Illinois Senator a pretty regular, level headed guy, whatever they think of him on the issues. Talk about lowering expectations before the debate! The McCain campaign prepared the nation for a new Che Guevara. What we got is a candidate who Aaron Sorken might’ve written onto The West Wing.

James Poulos writes:

A crippled economy and a stalwart opposition gives a transformational president little to work with. But, paradoxically, perhaps that’s the greatest hedge against overactive presidencies from either Obama or McCain. It’s easy to think we’re headed for more sweeping change in government, given what’s wracked the world private sector. But the weight of bureaucracy and the inertia of government means we’re largely locked in. Ironically, it may be the case that Obama will not be truly transformational enough, and McCain will be too apt to precipitous, impulsive change.

Elitism in Politics

Call me crazy, but I am all in favor of having elitists run the political scene in our country. You know, guys like McCain, who have become quite spectacular at what they do, brimming with knowledge, depth of insight, and so forth. Electing someone for their colloquialisms on the other hand, seems foolish. Electing someone because they are "just like me" seems absurd.

Sam Harris writes, in Newsweek,

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country....

...Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence.

What I found so appealing about the McCain campaign prior to the Palin pick was the experience of John McCain compared to the inexperience of Barack Obama. Now, however, a new element has entered my decision making, and that is the other qualities of Obama, especially the ones that distinguish him from Palin.

As Charles Krauthammer writes,

In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well....

...He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring.

Part of reassurance is intellectual. Like Palin, he's a rookie, but in his 19 months on the national stage he has achieved fluency in areas in which he has no experience. In the foreign policy debate with McCain, as in his July news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama held his own -- fluid, familiar and therefore plausibly presidential.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

Looks like even Krauthammer sees an Obama victory, and isn't too worried about it. That's probably the most interesting turn of events I've seen in, well, days....