Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General DeMint's Head Where We Thought

It has always amazed me, having lived in many different countries, why Americans are so "impressed" with spindleheads whose only claim to fame is shocking people with outrageous and mendacious statements.
Could this be a vestige of Victorian morality?

Naw, it's just a race to the bottom, economically and in intelligence. If politics required real brains, rather than graft, idiot ideology, and bribes, it would mean that our leaders would need to be well read, well educated, and able to think of matters beyond the penumbra of their own pocketbooks in order to hold office.

i have for the longest (well since 2001 anyway) asked myself the question are these folks for real?

Yes, Numan, some of these folks are for real. Beck is the only one I am still ambivalent about. Mostly I decide he is a huckster. I think he found an easy paradigm to swindle people.

I like listening to Limbo when he is trying to spin some topic. He anxiously starts looking around for help, but Snerdly can't help, he starts fumbling with the topic, he may go in one direction and retreat in the opposite, he shuffles the papers of misinformation, starts wildly gesticulating and arrives at some conclusion which he finds satisfactory. Sometimes after a break and after he has thought about the nonsense he just conveyed, he will offer a different analysis which he claims is more to the point. Yikes ... and the ignorant simply swallow this crap

Hannity on the other hand is incapable of mounting any intellectual argument and simply resorts to his litany of lies.

Political paranoia is intellectually debilitating. Once they have entered the realm of the irrational, their only solace is the delusions which shape their mind.

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What about this, rporter ?

Straight from the horse's...er...ass's mouth !!

let me phrase it in a way which is open for all manner of interpretation

I do not see in his eyes an Elmer Gantry, instead I see the sparkle of an irrational person wildly trying to drag me into their delusion

just because they are irrational and have very weak "arguments", does not imply they are hucksters. It could just mean they are intellectually weak and that is the best they can do.

All I was saying is that I watched a younger Mr. Limbaugh openly and rather gleefully declare himself a very successful huckster.

I don't think he generally believes, or cares much, about the content of his "opinions".

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We are to regard what someone sees in the eyes of another person as a criterion of truth ?

Plenty of people looked into Hitler's eyes and saw the greatest, noblest leader of the age !!

What Logy heard him say, when adequately confirmed by research, sounds much more reliable.

interesting comments from both Numan and the Troll from Log

limbo is famous for intimation without literal use of words ... so when he says he lies to make millions what i think he means (remember this guy is a weasel) is he rabidly believes in the conservatives principles he purveys but has to lie to his audience with fallacious arguments in support of those principles. So when he says DeMint is X, Y and Z the right kind of conservative, we know he does believe in the principles.

The difference is perhaps a little too nuanced but try this ... a snake oil salesperson will sell a product which has no use or benefit to anyone but convincingly says it does ... limbo is selling ideas which have to be framed properly for his audience to understand ... the cost is nothing to listen and believe

a side note which is i believe more appropriate is the numerous conservative sleazes who do take advantage of of their constituency by actually making money from their, the constituents, ignorance.

I don't think (and of course there is no way to get inside Limbaugh's head, thank goodness!! ) he believes in anything but money. He is, by virtue of the type of things he says, corrupt to the bone. If he thought that selling Nazi fascism to the dunderheads that listen to him would make him more money he would. He would also sell Pol Pot if it would turn a buck.
He is no different from an alarmingly large portion of the population that will do anything to fleece the suckers. Wall Street, Politicians, Marketing execs, Hollywood execs, Publishing execs,... etc. all cut from the same immoral cloth.
What is needed is an educated populace. And that is much easier said than done.

Or, he's taking marching orders, perhaps in the form of money wrappers for all that lovely dosh. The money only greases the mendacity machine. Sadly, we are paying for our own destruction through bailouts, tax breaks and the cost of products produced by huge corporations, now known as people that can be sold on the New York Stock Exchange.

And, I agree we need to improve education. I try to talk to at least 5 kids a day about reading the founding documents, and then when I see them again, we discuss it, using real world examples. Some are, with what's going on in "X" Country, how would we use the First Amendment? Fifth? Tenth? Fourteenth? Then I give them the reading list I always carry with me, and that has been copied about 100 times this year alone.