Michelle Obama stole the show on night one of the Democratic National Convention, which is saying quite a bit given Ted Kennedy's dramatic appearance. She presented herself as a girl from the South Side of Chicago rather than an Ivy League elitist. She, in an effort to erase past characterizations, let everyone know--and we needed to hear it--"I love this country." The taped introductory remarks by her mother, her brother's introduction, and, especially, the scripted banter with Barack Obama and her beautiful children humanized her. She no longer seems like Omarosa Obama, but Michelle Obama, a wife, mother, daughter, person.

The presentation deserves an "A"--far better than the preceding borefest of speeches by people who make their living giving them. The substance, however, alarmed me. Specifically, the person writing the speech crafted a narrative reminiscent of Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man. Herbert Marcuse, as readers of Intellectual Morons know, was the pop philosopher of the New Left. He is famous for his "intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left," which almost reads as marching orders for generations of campus activists, academics, and administrators. But his most important work was a 1964 book called One-Dimensional Man, which posited that reality is false and fantasy is truth. The one-dimensional man merely sees the existing world. The two-dimensional man also sees the potential world of his imagination. Sound familiar?

On Monday night, Michelle Obama divided people between those who "see the world as it is" and those who "see the world as it should be." She argued that "America should be a place where you can make it if you try." But her autobiographical message suggests that it is that place. This overriding theme of the speech was straight Marcuse. She concluded by counselling the audience to "stop doubting" and "start dreaming."

Count me in the camp of the doubters. Better to preserve what's good than to experiment for a brave new world. The story of the past century is idealism run amok. People who saw "the world as it should be" made a world far more horrific than the one that they inherited. From the creators of "heaven on earth" in the Soviet Union, to the dreamers of a "perfect" race of men in Nazi Germany, to the idealists who seek Allah's kingdom in the temporal world, recent history is filled with examples of why it's dangerous to leave politics, the art of the possible, in the hands of those who dream the impossible. Stop dreaming. Start doubting.

Hasn't that always been the flaw of liberalism and the quest for Utopia? The refusal or inability to grow up and understand the world for what it is.

"see the world as it is" and those who "see the world as it should be."

The former could describe how Conservatives understand it and the latter how Liberals would like it.

I can remember during high school and my early college years being one of the Utopian dreamers.

At the time I never saw aything wrong with the liberal ideals of caring for the old, infirmed, and making sure everyone had their "fair share."

Two things happened. 1)my idealism ran smack into the reality of human nature. Modern liberalism espouses noble ideals, but seldom strives towards them. Modern liberalism is about control, not about equality.
2) when I became disabled I learned that if one relies on the government, one will surely regret the loss of various freedoms. For as soon as one reaches a hand out to the government for help, the system qucikly ties that hand behind one's back. Under the current system, one can better one's self, but only within the very narrow guidelines set aside by those in charge. Going to the gym to improve one's body-so that one can get off of the dole can-very well lead to the gov't taking away one's huge benefit of around $800 per month.

In concept, liberalism is noble.

In practice, liberalism is a sham.

Be well,

Sponge

I think the funnier/alarming moment was here:

"And one day, they - and your sons and daughters - will tell their own children about what we did together in this election. They'll tell them how this time, we listened to our hopes, instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming. How this time, in this great country - where a girl from the South Side of Chicago can go to college and law school, and the son of a single mother from Hawaii can go all the way to the White House - we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be."

Dan is, of course, right in saying that seeking the brave new world is a dangerous business. But to further the discussion: in every election in recent memory, the stakes have been as high as they can possibly be (according to the DNC). So high, in fact, that Patton-esque speeches like this don't seem strike anyone as, well...a little much. Or even, as it is, a big pile of poo (yes, poo).

For my money, I don't mind expectations being raised to impossible heights, as there is nowhere to go but down.

But c'mon...there's going to be a new President. There will be most likely be others.

How about, one day, our sons and daughters might tell their children how Obama lobbied the Justice Department to thwart free speech by halting political ads that explicitly link Obama with the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers? Is that the kind of America we want future generations to have?

Although, in Obama's America, information will likely not be allowed to be passed down to generations of sons and daughters.

Optimism and critical thinking not not be mutually exclusive. Don't tell the "dreamers", at least until the convention is over. Might kill the buzz.

I believe Barry Goldwater campaigned on the idea that the Civil Rights Bill was unconstitutional. No experimenting with the idea of 'one man, one vote' for Mr Conservative.

Guido

Yet somehow this one man has never been allowed to cast even one vote on the whole Baby-killing issue. Odd...

In fact, throughout his history, he leaves no paper trail of any kind and no evidence that's he's willing to put his a$$ on the line for anything.

That's change we can believe in.

"In concept, liberalism is noble.

In practice, liberalism is a sham."

then
In concept, conservatism is oppressive.

In practice, conservatism is lucrative.

I'm just glad that the pot smoking ex-SDS wife beating drunk Tom Hayden wants to let bygones be bygones and forgive John McCain for bombing in Viet Nam.

As long as we can forgive Bill Ayers for Bombing the Pentagon and other various targets.

There IS such a thing as too much sex, drugs and rock and roll.

ANgrymob, I would counter with this...

In theory, conservatism is all about personal freedom.

In practice, conservatism is only about the freedoms "we" agree with.

Is that fair enough?

Be well,

Sponge

Sponge, of course it's about freedoms we agree with. Absolute freedom is anarchy, and there is no reason not to give people the "freedom" to enslave others for their own benefit. Some structure must serve in the moderation of absolute freedom. Agreement is central to a democratic polity.

Now, there is only one such disconnect left: the different sides disagree about what we as a whole should agree about. But each proposed policy is conceived in light of what would happen only if it were agreed upon. There would definitely be a problem if that many conservatives held that x should be a law--that we should constrict freedom in such a fashion--and damn the majority opinion.

You've just described democracy. We have laws (a lot!) which regulate the process by which one of gets more say for a time than others: that is, by which someone gets to be a representative of the people's will. You're not just "free" to assume the dispenser of a number of people's vote as you please.

One of those laws says that no one is "free" to give millions of dollars to another's political campaign as a private contribution. Another is that you're not given the "freedom" to decide what you can tell an acquaintance in a foreign country.

But that points out a difference I have between myself and standard conservative rhetoric. I don't reflect that my private theft of my taking money directly from you, and the taxes that a jurisdictional authority takes from you are on the same level, simply because they are the same act. It's not like I could privately charge you with a crime or treason with much justification, either. But the health of the body politic depends that we can thus restrain those who try to amass more power than is given them by law--or by fair use of circumstances.

The standard college example of the legislative process is usually a stop sign at an intersection. Initially, it's not easy to see where the coercion of government comes in--except if you look at the stop sign itself. You must come to a full stop. You do not have the "freedom" to decide how much you want to stop and the conditions in which you will stop. The placing of a new stop sign is not as coercive as the first stop sign, it just decides incrementally in which new case we will constrict your freedom in a pattern seen before.

It does well always to remember that democracy occurs in a world where people already have long had restraints on their freedom. Democracy simply add the idea that we could agree to the inherent restraints imposed by governments: the consent of the governed.

That said, I think a conservative best understands this. We are usually just trying to temper what has been tried, and trying to change a variable or two. Michelle thinks we should start with whole cloth.

Sea King, points well made, and well taken.

Where I run into trouble is with what seems to me to be hypocrisy in the very core of some liberal and conservative beliefs.

The liberals say that we cannot legislate morality, yet they say that Republicans are "evil" for cutting a social program. IMO, their wealth redistribution (their concept of what is morally right) is no different than some of the things they deride conservatives about.

The Conservatives say that the governmetn needs to stop being so intrusive, yet want it to intrude into the bedrooms of homosexuals everywherem into web surfing data, etc.

Many, like me, who have a live and let live philosophy about most things are getting squashed in the middle. Liberals pass laws to control what foods I eat, rather than trust me to decide for myself. Conservatives think it is okay to surrender some personal freedoms for the sake of "security."

I do not classify myself as either end of the specturm, I have no clue other than I am a federalist at heart. But my two greatest heroes are Jesus of Nazareth and George Washington, if that helps.

Be well,

Sponge

Sponge, good comments.

I think you'll find that violating stated principles is more direct in liberal cases, than conservatives.

Liberals argue that freedom is absolute. In fact, they didn't like it when Robert Bork gave a very cogent answer about how freedoms are reassigned with Constitutional decisions. They would rather not look on that, they tend to want absolutes.

Thus the "hate speech" issue is not about reassigning freedoms because nobody should have a freedom to say hateful things. That's it. They can still maintain an unfettered love of "freedom of expression" just thinking that it is absurd or perverse to suggest that bigoted speech could fall under "expression". The rejoinder is to implicate something about the person arguing the case the other way. "Why would you want to express yourself with a racist expression?" or "Why do you care about people wanting to express themselves in this way?"

However, you'll find that conservatives do not as directly contradict their concerns about intrusive government. Liberals have had an interest, from at least the Scopes trial, in invalidating seldom enforced laws, for political gain.

For the Scopes trial, for example, the ACLU advertised for a teacher to come to Tennessee and break the law forbidding teaching from the banned Eugenics text book. Scopes answered the call, for which he was fined like $10, which William Jennings Bryant, the prosecuting attorney offered to pay out of his own pocket, because Scopes seemed like a nice guy. Bryant was most swayed to take the case because Scopes was teaching from a rather racialist evolution text.

I've heard that Lawrence v. Texas is similar. Texas hadn't enforced the law in decades. And it took a volunteer to enforce the law--in order to test it. So it's not like there was a massive intrusive presence before people were given the Constitutional right to sodomy. Intrusion only becomes an issue if there was a suggestion that the localities step up their efforts to stop sodomy, or fund a War against Sodomy, or some other additional act.

Liberals do say you can't legislate morality. But that's an equivocation. You can't legislate a moral sense into a people. That's what that means. Laws are all about morality. Christians should now that spiritual rebirth accomplishes much more than "The Law" as a set of observances.

The other way it does nothing but make a moral statement: Legislating [based on] morality is wrong. Liberals expect conservatives to comply with this idea, besides the fact that they 1) use a fallacious interpretation and 2) cannot do what they mean themselves. Conservatism, outside of libertarianism--which seems to buy a lot of the liberal snake oil--has never imposed that principle on itself, despite that it can realize the problem of legislating morality.

Myself, I believe in dialog. Where liberals can say "you can't legislate morality" and then conservatives can show that everything legislates for a moral cause, and it was a silly utterance in the first place. We have stop signs because we have accepted limits on our freedoms on the road for the value of other people keeping their body and limbs intact. We put them up wherever it appears to us that injury has become more likely than not--but even yield signs and right-of-way and pedestrian laws govern us each second we are driving.

When I think about it, that phrase "consent of the governed" is big. We are going to be governed. It kind of puts all the liberal/libertarian verbiage into perspective. There is an inherent expectation to be governed.

"In theory, conservatism is all about personal freedom.

In practice, conservatism is only about the freedoms "we" agree with."

Where do unwarrented wire taps, restricting who can and can't marry whom, and continued unspoken segregation and underfunding of our public schools fit in with personal freedom and the conservative ideal. Just a few examples of the conservative machine trying to direct the lives of others in the name of moral soundness and national security.

Last I checked the words leberal and conservative comes from their interpretation of the constitution. By definition conservative means restrictive and controling, yet you suggest that it is oppression in the name of freedom.

As far as whatever comment about liberals restricting what foods you eat... it is the same as smoking bans (usually passed by municipalities) and the illegal nature of suicide. When something is known to be harmful or deadly, then the populous agrees to ban it. By no means is is a mechanism of the liberal machine. Liberals simply offer up the discussion for debate because they feel it is within the framework of the constitution, then they do everything within that framework to serve the desires of the public.

ASDF,
No such thing as too much sex and rock and roll. No such thing as too few drugs.

I do suppose you can keep at least some of your mind with sex and rock n' roll. Must be the drugs that make these nuts, well.......nuts!

I do have friends who take drugs and they don't often recognize how out there they are.

I know some people who take drugs too. I call them liberals. I also suspect some "angry" people here take drugs as well.

"restricting who can and can't marry whom" has been a role of the state as long as the state has licensed marriage. The public has shown nothing but interest in keeping it the way it is now. The liberals leverage in "Constitutional" terms so that appointed judges can decide for everybody what is in the public interest.

Meanwhile, we've decreased our interest in "what goes on in other people's bedrooms"--where the intrusion comes in--and settled for what is publicly approved as a legal entity.

The "liberal" interpretation of the Constitution is to deny the people the right to decide which institutions they can prefer simply because they don't treat all sexual unions--which supposedly aren't their business to know about--as equal.

The liberal elitist is active in promoting judges to long chains of inference to justify overruling the will of the people.

Sea King, pl.easant to trade points in a civil fashion, I appreciate that.

You just hit a very solid point in my "hypocrisy" dilema. I have oftn heard from the left complaints of a so-called "pleutocracy" wherein a handful of a few powerful individuals are really in control. (Skull & Bones type of thing).

BBut then the left gives us the recent case in California. There, the majority of citizens voted to ban gay marriage. Then along comes a handful of activist judges to negate the will of the people.

Pleutocracy indeed.

Be well,

Sponge

"The liberals leverage in "Constitutional" terms so that appointed judges can decide for everybody what is in the public interest."

Isn't that what republicans do as well? Doesn't the right have a monopoly on morals and patriotism, from which has appointed radically conservative judges so they can affect public interest? Look in the mirror.

as for
"The "liberal" interpretation of the Constitution is to deny the people the right to decide which institutions they can prefer "

wrong. The liberal interpretation is OPEN for the people, e.g. free speech= freedom of flag burning, freedom of the press= ousting the bush/cheney scandals, due process= habeas corpus for all involved in legal system(inc. guitmo), search and seizure amendment= ONLY with warrants (F* Bush on this one).

A certainly strong track record of oppression from the right while the left opens more doors. Sorry you have to be so ignorant and wrong :)

"I do have friends who take drugs and they don't often recognize how out there they are."

That's because they are inside your head.

Mob:

free speech

freedom of the press

Freedom to assemble? Not around Gay Pride events--not if you're not going to agree with it. Not in front of abortion centers.

Right to petition? See Sponge's reference--and read up on it. The court took all but one week to parse the petition, leaving a single week to gather 100,000 signatures--which they did--only to have some thrown out--despite that people came to the courthouse to testify that they had signed legally.

Most of what you mentioned are rights--no doubt (except for the part about Bush/Cheney). But most of the actual freedoms you list are preference-based. Freedom of speech? I can say what I like. Freedom of the press? They can print what they like--and I can read what I like. Left alone, it's equally at home with free subjects of a libertine state. Let's throw in some bread and circuses while we're at it!

As for Habeus Corpus, read what the Cons actually says:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. [italics mine]

The Cons is not some cloud-world manifesto of freedoms. It is a document meant to guide us in real world situations. Liberals like to say that the war is still on--well, the Commander in Chief has some extensive powers in times of war--and as we've seen rebellion, invasion and when he feels the public safety is at risk. So we're either at war or at peace--with some agitation in the Iraq theater.

I'm not interested in your bumper stickers.

Last I checked there was no rebellion or invasion. Let me know if I am wrong and I'll tell annie to go grab her gun.

As far as bumper stickers go. Just keep telling yourself that 'We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia"

The FCC has since withdrawn the Fairness Doctrine, prompting some to urge its introduction through either Commission policy or Congressional legislation.

aka, it was never law and no longer exists.

Second, there is no federal law against 'hate speech', there do exist codes of conduct within institutions of which a violation could be illegal. The only things not covered by the 1st ammendment are slander/defamation, inciting riots, and yelling fire in a movie (that one probably falls under a code somewhere.)

Your inability to assemble, as related in the Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act of 2006, states that you can gather, just no closer that 300 ft. of the cemetary enterance. As far as abortion clinics, you are wrong and you can protest there, as upheld by the supreme court in 2003 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/02/26/abortion.protests/index.html)

You must be some legal scholor, where did you get your J.D., off the back of a Wheaties box?

As for President Cheney, I think it was a rights violation to leak Vallerie Pflame's identity on purpose for polical and financial gains. Again, the warrantless wire taps after explicit disapproval from Alberto Gonzales, A.G., were a definate violation of civil rights, as was the ommitance of Habeas Corpus in Gitmo as recently decided by bush's chief justice and court.

Our rights have been stripped and trampled as a result of an epic 'conservative' small government failure.