Honesty Is the Best...Perceptive Faculty
Checked news again. Nothing big. North Korea is backing off its nuclear test. Ho hum. Some fighting in Iraq, such a surprise... something else... There was one story on Foley.
Then I went to Pajamas Media. Chock full of Foley. I didn't read any of it because I'm sick of it, but there is a reason it's being discussed and that's because it's huge. It's huge because it's sprung loose intense and hidden emotions, and everyone's surprised, so it has to be considered.
Without it's being anyone's intent, this has become a story not about Foley but about homosexuality, and what's been discovered is that nobody likes it.
It's interesting that, though by accidental indirection, this has become an "honest" debate. There's immense intellectual confusion, nothing that's argued is honest, but the emotions are honest: every charge against Foley is "true" because every statement is shaped by emotion and that emotion is repulsion at the homosexual act. What he did is wrong and abhorrent... because it's homosexual.
So the emotions are honest though the arguments aren't. This sort of snuck up on everybody. Republican... Closet... Homosexual. You can jump all over that. Had it been a Democrat, and a proud fellow, a gay, you couldn't have done that, it would have been gay-bashing. But a Republican? Let'er rip. Both sides... And what we discovered is that any kind of nastiness said about a homosexual is okay because that's actually the way everybody feels. Never mind if the charges are true, or that there might have been violations of privacy, that there might have been defamation. Just bash'em. Let everybody know "You're not going to stand for that."
This is honest. Honesty is good.
But I do think now that some are already moving to the more rational. Some are beginning to question the truth of the allegations, the meaning, the damage done, and some are beginning to recognize that this is not an attack on Foley but on a particular group sharing a particular orientation and they're beginning to recognize that perhaps this whole bashing bit needs a bit more thought.
The veil fell, homosexuality is despised, repellent to the right, contemptible to the left. Nobody likes queers. And again, honesty outbursts can be good. As things settle down possibly there will be good discussion. At the very least, nobody is again going to be able to argue that they think this sort of thing is normal, just-like-you-and-me.
On what I consider a related note: Some weeks ago I heard James Carville gloat: "If we can't win in this environment we have to examine what the party is all about." The "enviornment", if I properly understand his statement, he finds "favorable". And last night I read a Time article containing somewhere in the middle this comment (relative to Foley): "...and in the one area where the Republicans had yet held the moral high ground..." the point of the comment being two fold: that Republicans were now seen as harboring perverts, or something very bad anyway, and that in everything else Democrats did hold the moral high ground. This is stunning. No list was given as to specifics where Democrats held the high ground, and no argument was made as to how the disclosure of a Reublican gay could cause a loss of such heights. It was only an assertion, that Democrats held the moral high ground. The point here is that "moral high ground" is not specific but purely definitional: If you are a Democrat, you are moral, and that's it. They actually believe this, and they actually believe that whatever they see as Democrats is actually what's there.
The environment is favorable to Republicans. The economy is great, gas prices are down, there have been no hurricanes, the war on terror is going well, and while the war in Iraq is a slog it's stable. Everything is favorable for Republicans, except the yammering of the press.
This is a strange world we live in. The press is nuts. They live in an invented world, and they believe it.
So, the point of this post is to call the election... But how? Which will have the most effect, the real world accurately perceived, or the press percieved-and-created world of dissatisfaction and condemnation? I don't really know. It depends on what portion of Americans are truly nuts, and on how many additional of the merely marginal the nut filled press can pull with them. The polls right now show dissatisfaction. Yammer upon yammer creates dissatisfaction. But that's not the same as judgment. We won't see that judgment until the vote, and the question is, how many will judge with their own eyes and intellect, and how many will judge only through the eyes of the press?
Foley? Yammer and noise and in the end fairly unimportant in terms of votes. It will die in seven days more by mutual consent. Tomorrow already will be gay-bashing, and neither party is going to want to stick with that. Possibly something will come out yet in the dirty tricks department but that's it. The veil will be drawn back, the wild charges will cease... "I'm so sorry I said that." But everyone will know what everyone thinks, and that will be that you can't any longer say the word gay without thinking the word "creep".
..............................
Ho Hum????
North Korea actually did conduct a test!!!!? Been following it a couple of hours. I "ho hummed" it earlier because I thought it was all just bluster and angling to induce the US into two party talks. Last night if I'd had the time I would have done a short post: They Aren't Gonna Do it. But I didn't have time and didn't and they did, apparently.
(2:34 AM)
.............................
The U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a 4.2 magnitude quake in North Korea at 10:35 local time (0135 GMT) on Monday, confirming a similar report from South Korea.
I'm very slow to believe this for some reason but a lot of people are taking it seriously.
BBC notes:
The seismic evidence is still being analyzed, but North Korea's announcement is already prompting shock waves around the region.
Apparently there's a general recognition that you gotta have your data down on this one.
Michelle Malkin is following it closely.
I guess my feeling was that they didn't really have the technical capacities to actually make one of those things explode.
Fox News has just reported that a "SeniorUS official" confirms it was indeed a nuclear explosion.
...And just at the moment there doesn't seem to be a lot more being said. I'll remain unconvinced the explosion was actually nuclear until I hear statements that are official statements of government, but that's more of an instinctual intellectual caution than a real doubt.
(3:38 AM)
Then I went to Pajamas Media. Chock full of Foley. I didn't read any of it because I'm sick of it, but there is a reason it's being discussed and that's because it's huge. It's huge because it's sprung loose intense and hidden emotions, and everyone's surprised, so it has to be considered.
Without it's being anyone's intent, this has become a story not about Foley but about homosexuality, and what's been discovered is that nobody likes it.
It's interesting that, though by accidental indirection, this has become an "honest" debate. There's immense intellectual confusion, nothing that's argued is honest, but the emotions are honest: every charge against Foley is "true" because every statement is shaped by emotion and that emotion is repulsion at the homosexual act. What he did is wrong and abhorrent... because it's homosexual.
So the emotions are honest though the arguments aren't. This sort of snuck up on everybody. Republican... Closet... Homosexual. You can jump all over that. Had it been a Democrat, and a proud fellow, a gay, you couldn't have done that, it would have been gay-bashing. But a Republican? Let'er rip. Both sides... And what we discovered is that any kind of nastiness said about a homosexual is okay because that's actually the way everybody feels. Never mind if the charges are true, or that there might have been violations of privacy, that there might have been defamation. Just bash'em. Let everybody know "You're not going to stand for that."
This is honest. Honesty is good.
But I do think now that some are already moving to the more rational. Some are beginning to question the truth of the allegations, the meaning, the damage done, and some are beginning to recognize that this is not an attack on Foley but on a particular group sharing a particular orientation and they're beginning to recognize that perhaps this whole bashing bit needs a bit more thought.
The veil fell, homosexuality is despised, repellent to the right, contemptible to the left. Nobody likes queers. And again, honesty outbursts can be good. As things settle down possibly there will be good discussion. At the very least, nobody is again going to be able to argue that they think this sort of thing is normal, just-like-you-and-me.
On what I consider a related note: Some weeks ago I heard James Carville gloat: "If we can't win in this environment we have to examine what the party is all about." The "enviornment", if I properly understand his statement, he finds "favorable". And last night I read a Time article containing somewhere in the middle this comment (relative to Foley): "...and in the one area where the Republicans had yet held the moral high ground..." the point of the comment being two fold: that Republicans were now seen as harboring perverts, or something very bad anyway, and that in everything else Democrats did hold the moral high ground. This is stunning. No list was given as to specifics where Democrats held the high ground, and no argument was made as to how the disclosure of a Reublican gay could cause a loss of such heights. It was only an assertion, that Democrats held the moral high ground. The point here is that "moral high ground" is not specific but purely definitional: If you are a Democrat, you are moral, and that's it. They actually believe this, and they actually believe that whatever they see as Democrats is actually what's there.
The environment is favorable to Republicans. The economy is great, gas prices are down, there have been no hurricanes, the war on terror is going well, and while the war in Iraq is a slog it's stable. Everything is favorable for Republicans, except the yammering of the press.
This is a strange world we live in. The press is nuts. They live in an invented world, and they believe it.
So, the point of this post is to call the election... But how? Which will have the most effect, the real world accurately perceived, or the press percieved-and-created world of dissatisfaction and condemnation? I don't really know. It depends on what portion of Americans are truly nuts, and on how many additional of the merely marginal the nut filled press can pull with them. The polls right now show dissatisfaction. Yammer upon yammer creates dissatisfaction. But that's not the same as judgment. We won't see that judgment until the vote, and the question is, how many will judge with their own eyes and intellect, and how many will judge only through the eyes of the press?
Foley? Yammer and noise and in the end fairly unimportant in terms of votes. It will die in seven days more by mutual consent. Tomorrow already will be gay-bashing, and neither party is going to want to stick with that. Possibly something will come out yet in the dirty tricks department but that's it. The veil will be drawn back, the wild charges will cease... "I'm so sorry I said that." But everyone will know what everyone thinks, and that will be that you can't any longer say the word gay without thinking the word "creep".
..............................
Ho Hum????
North Korea actually did conduct a test!!!!? Been following it a couple of hours. I "ho hummed" it earlier because I thought it was all just bluster and angling to induce the US into two party talks. Last night if I'd had the time I would have done a short post: They Aren't Gonna Do it. But I didn't have time and didn't and they did, apparently.
(2:34 AM)
.............................
The U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a 4.2 magnitude quake in North Korea at 10:35 local time (0135 GMT) on Monday, confirming a similar report from South Korea.
I'm very slow to believe this for some reason but a lot of people are taking it seriously.
BBC notes:
The seismic evidence is still being analyzed, but North Korea's announcement is already prompting shock waves around the region.
Apparently there's a general recognition that you gotta have your data down on this one.
Michelle Malkin is following it closely.
I guess my feeling was that they didn't really have the technical capacities to actually make one of those things explode.
Fox News has just reported that a "SeniorUS official" confirms it was indeed a nuclear explosion.
...And just at the moment there doesn't seem to be a lot more being said. I'll remain unconvinced the explosion was actually nuclear until I hear statements that are official statements of government, but that's more of an instinctual intellectual caution than a real doubt.
(3:38 AM)
posted by mouse at 10:34 PM
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