Monday, July 23, 2012

Barnes contradicts AA

Where's my bottle of tawny? [Add a pic, per AA's learned comment.]

24 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...

That bottle of tawny is currently in that Land of Fantasia wherein Fred Barnes said anything that contradicted AA.

Tecumseh said...

Ach, so. I thought AA said there has not been any movement to the left lately. Yet Barnes says, right there in the subtitle, Obama goes left, left, and left again.

Now, now, how are we going to reconcile these two superficially contradictory statements? Maybe it's a question of what the definition of "left" is? Or, more likely, what "move" or "goes" means?

I tend to agree with Sir Isaac, who said that "a body in motion tends to stay in motion", or words to that effect. So, if one goes left, one tends to keep going left. No?

Arelcao Akleos said...

"I thought AA said there has not been any movement to the left lately."

Correct.

Fred Barnes says that "Obama goes left, left, left, and left again"

Correct, ol Fred is mighty observant.

Tecumseh's suggestion: " Barnes contradicts AA"

Nope

Let's see if we can explain the apparent conundrum:

[1] Obama has been a consistent hardcore leftist since Mentor Davis taught him his ABCs, Saul Alinsky taught him the Rules of the Game, and Mama and Papa and Commie Grandpa made sure he was Red in tooth and claw.
So, no movement there. His Leftism has been gloriously invariant.
[2] Obama is elected in 2008 on a platform to Fundamentally Transform America to a socialist state [Heck, even Newsweek fessed this back in the long ago]. Obama is seeking election in 2012 saying he needs 4 more years to finish Fundamentally Transforming America to a socialist state.
So, no movement there. His aim at Fundamental Transformation to socialism is a glorious invariant.
So, how can Freddy be correct about Obama going left and yet AA be correct that Obama's going left is an invariant?
Hmmm, that is a real humdinger.....

I believe the confusion resulted from the understanding of "not been any movement to the left lately". When we are talking about a movement in political direction we talking about a change of direction. But there has been no change in direction. Hence no movement in political direction. Continuing one's motion along the same direction, ever the same direction, sure allows you to go in that direction, but there ain't no movement in direction.
Not quite Newton's Law of Inertia, but at least we ain't talking about that kind of violation of Uniform Motion which comes from deviation from the straight and narrow.

Tecumseh said...

So let me get this straight. If I keep on truckin' on I95 at 55mph towards NYC, and never stop to pee, or turn around or something, I ain't moving towards the Big Apple?

Methinks Sir Isaac is spinning in his grave just about now.

Which brings me back to good ole' Vlady. So when he was doing his two-step dance, was he moving towards the Glorious Future or was he spinning his wheels?

Arelcao Akleos said...

If you keep truckin to Bloombergia, onwards and onwards to Bloombergia, nary even stopping for a pee, then you've never changed your direction towards Bloombergia. You keep going and going to Bloombergia, but no movement in direction.
It's a mystery it is.

Arelcao Akleos said...

Now, if you decide to aim instead for Princeton, well, there you are, a movement in direction.

Not that I don't recommend it.

Mr roT said...

Princeton fanboy AA! You're just hot for this shithead.
It is a pity that you went to UC and expected to get the habit of critical thinking, learning instead to follow blindly the herd.

Tecumseh said...

Waiting for Krugman to return?

Mr roT said...

AA is having trouble choosing from pinko economics and W.-bashing and black victimhood.

Arelcao Akleos said...

It is definitely hard to choose between pinko economics and W-bashing and black victimhood. There may not be enough Victory Gin in the world to swill that could get me to make a choice between 'em.

Mr roT said...

Victory Gin?
You never used Southern Comfort in earnest. You'll be hollerin' Rebel yells while projectile-vomiting.

Tecumseh said...

What's "Victory Gin"? Some kind of West Virginia hooch? I'll stay with Cognac, thank you.

Mr roT said...

West Virginia Cognac is the best there is, but they're completely inferior to Laphroaig.

Tecumseh said...

How about North Dakota Armagnac? You fancy that?

Mr roT said...

Hilarious, but it sounds like MFT is back.

Arelcao Akleos said...

Victory Gin, as you well read gents no doubt recall, was the firewater doled out to the Outer Party types to keep them just enough zonked to not cause the likes of Mr. O'Brien too much of trouble.

Mr roT said...

Shit, AA. It looks like I owe you a Victory gimlet. Just to know, does Victory have real juniper berries or something like the stuff sold at the Korova Milk Bar in A Clockwork Orange. There, one could purchase the state-produced vellocet (a synthetic opiate), and synthemesc (a synthetic mescaline). Probably this was the pharmaceutical/recreational drug version of the Lada automobile.
Ask Tecs about the thrill of a Lada's handling and about handling girls in a Lada. I have been wondering for awhile about how Romania can produce a crop of stunning women every harvesting season. I think Lenin's long and unrealistic multiyear plans had some good points because I have never beheld such beautiful human females as the Romanian subspecies.
It is a damned shame that the Romanians never got anywhere close to a success in aviation powerplant engineering and that I have never gotten far enough with the Romanian goddesses; that is a a pair of nightmares that I and many others want to escape.

Tecumseh said...

I didn't have a Lada; rather, I had a Trabant Kombi. The body was made of, like, plasticky cardboard. No way to bring in a girl in there, I woulda punched holes in the cardboard.

Mr roT said...

Sorry that I mixed up Soviet-era automobile brands. Coming from superficial America, there are gaps in my education. You may recall that my advisor, God bless him, noted these fissures and used some of the copious strength of his character to spackle these gaps and help make me the perfection that I am now.

Tecumseh said...

Even with all those gaps (spackled or not), you should have known that the Lada was introduced in 1970, as a shitty knock-out of a dinky Fiat. That was too late for me -- I was riding in the back of that Trabbie up and down the Carpathians in the mid 60s. Granted, it was hard going up those mountains with what amounted to a lawn-mower engine, but hey, better than simply walking up those gravelly roads.

Mr roT said...

On first reading, I missed the part about the need for structural integrity in a car if one tries to share a seat in a car with a Czech-Romanian woman like Paulina Porizkova.

For falling asleep at the wheel in a reverie caused remembering an image of Porizkova, I suppose you can remove one or two bottles from your enormous debt of VCP to me or AA. I am feeling generous toward him for some reason, probably a fever.

Mr roT said...

Can I walk on gravelly roads with Paulina? That sounds great! Remember that sweet story in Slate about a Brit travel writer that goes to a thoroughly out-in-the-sticks to show the gorgeous Romanian girl the Rolls-Royce?
Aha! After a lengthy commune with Google, I found the aricle. What a joy it was to read that way back then. I think youse owe a mess of VCP, especially including the interest accrued for this, Tecs and AA. As I recall you, Tecs, and even heartless AA were as fond of it as I was and still am. I still have the picture of her old but perfectly clean white cotton dress in my head. My Romanian-Czech friend whose pictures I have been sending to Tecs had a similar dress to the one in my imagination built from Simon Winchester's story.
Heady days those. All gone now and further replaced by the feeling of the pervasive doom of the era of Scrobama Imperator.

Tecumseh said...

Ah, those were the days, my friend. We thought they'll never end.

Where is Dr Laphroaig when you need him? I'll settle for some tsuica from a Pepsi plastic bottle.

Tecumseh said...

Taranto files this story ("To Arouse His Base, Obama Goes Left, Left and Left") under Too Much Information . Pretty good. Why didn't I think of that??