Disrupting the Narrative of the New Left, its allies in Academia, Hollywood and the Establishment Media, and examining with honesty the goals of cultural Marxism and the dangers of reactionary and abusive political correctness.
THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”-George Orwell
Showing posts with label low info voters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label low info voters. Show all posts
As one who was very pleased by the selection of Representative Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) to chair the Benghazi Select Committee, I hate to seem like I'm haranguing him (see, e.g., here and here; but see also here). His investigative decisions, however, continue to be baffling.
The latest development in the Hillary Clinton e-mail saga is the disclosure by her private attorney, David Kendall, that she has deleted all e-mail from the private server on which she improperly conducted government business while she was secretary of state. (See Shannen Coffin's latest legal analysis regarding laws potentially broken by Mrs. Clintonhere.) In light of the obvious ramifications this has for the Benghazi investigation, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren asked Chairman Gowdy what he intended to do about it. Gowdy responded:
We're going to have a conversation with Secretary Clinton.I would hope that it would be a transcribed interview, which is private, it protects her privacy. It protects national-security interests. And it rebuts this notion that this is a political charade, which some Democrats suggest. Let's have a private conversation about why you had your own server, why you didn't return the records when you left the State Department. And why you decided to permanently delete them when you knew the congressional investigations were ongoing.
The Washington Examiner is now reporting that Gowdy's committee has, in fact, "formally requested" that Mrs. Clinton appear for a private, transcribed interview - not compulsory public testimony. It is hard to say what is more disappointing: the chairman's plan or the instincts and apparent motivation behind it...
"Transportation is a right as much as education or having a job is a right," a Howard University student told Campus Reform at the rally on Wednesday. People who do not live near public transit also have a right to a car, she added.
Almost all participants interviewed agreed that the Constitution guarantees the right to a job.
"It's not a privilege," said another student. "Not a privilege. It is a right. It's not a driver's license. It is a right."
"Everyone has the right to a job," another said. "I don't care if you're college, high school, you dropped out, or whatever."
Another attendee, a representative of the organization Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), stated that all individuals had the right to free condoms and clean syringes.
Other "rights" cited by the attendees included the right to smoke marijuana and the right to Internet access.
I could go into all the reasons why the opinions expressed by these clueless Kool-aid guzzlers are absurd but I'll let Bill Whittle explain the difference between rights and commodities.
Here is the problem: low-information voters [LIV] are a big chunk of the electorate, especially in the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party isn't free of them either. These are the voters who could not tell you if the national debt is $16 million or $16 trillion. They don’t know anything about the criticisms of how our government handled Benghazi. Ben Ghazi? Isn't he an actor? Fast & Furious is a movie, not a scandal. They know that gay marriage is a good thing because all their favorite actors and musicians think it is so cool! And "assault weapons" are those guns they see in movies, firing hundreds of rounds a minute.
I hope by now that you are beginning to get the picture of what defines an LIV: he or she does not read PJ Media or, for that matter, the Huffington Post or any political publication, left or right. The better-informed LIVs read Us or People. Most of an LIV’s knowledge of economics, politics, and history comes from watching movies, television shows, The Daily Show, and stuff that one of his leftist friends posts on Facebook. You know why President Obama won the election? He was doing local radio shows and The View. He was being promoted by rap musicians and actors.
I get very frustrated with the number of Republican congressmen unwilling to put up a serious fight against the Democrats. Yes, some of them really stand for nothing, and some of them have been corrupted by the knowledge that if they don't support amnesty for illegals, they won't get agribusiness support at the next election. But a lot of congressmen are facing this harsh reality: LIVs are a big part of the electorate, even in fairly safe Republican districts.
If you start saying things that are contrary to conventional wisdom (you know, like the fact that murder rates are less than half of what they were in 1980, and assault weapons are used in a tiny fraction of 1% of U.S. murders), you will quickly become a kook to the LIVs.
It is not at all surprising that when Republican congressmen have to choose between the 30% of voters who are grossly misinformed or the 5% of voters who can actually tell you what the Kelo decision found or how much deficits increased after Democrats took over Congress in 2006, many members of Congress have no choice but to go with the ignorant ones. They have us outnumbered.
