dhalltoyo
Veteran Expediter
Let me preface this post with a statement. I am not a CB Rambo. In fact, I really do not enjoy listening to the CB radio as the speaker spews its continual stream of vulgar rants and lewd sexual comments. Nor do I listen to learn the location of law enforcement vehicles, because I do not exceed the speed limit. I listen in an attempt to avoid debris in the roadway, potholes, animals crossing highway and potential slowdowns due to traffic accidents.
In the course of listening to the CB I have heard much complaining. The negative comments have run the gamut of…well…you name it and somebody would conjure up a gripe. Interestingly, when asking the complainant as to how they would resolve their grievance, they generally offered little in the way of a workable solution. The person posing the request commonly was upbeat and positive regarding the probable outcome of the criticism spoken of by grumbler.
The more I listened the more it became apparent that the gloom and doom devotees were those who were quite liberal…politically speaking. Conversely, those who championed the positive aspects of living in this great nation were conservative in their political beliefs.
Could I be bias? Possibly. Why? I consider myself a conservative in my political beliefs. I had to ask myself, “Am I being object in my observation?” Keep in mind that I voted as a Democrat for many years. That fact alone gave me solace that I was being objective, but I needed more just to be sure regarding my observations.
After reading an article about playwright David Mamet it provided the reinforcement I was seeking. I now believe that liberals offer no positive views regarding the world around them or the country in which they live.
David Mamet is a Tony- and Oscar-nominated playwright, screenwriter and film director. His notable plays include Glengarry Glen Ross, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, and Speed-the-Plow. His films include The Verdict, Wag the Dog, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Ronin.He currently writes for and produces the television show “The Unit.”
As an author and essayist, he has accrued a large and loyal following among the Leftist glitterati.
Mamet chose to “come out” with an op-ed published by Norman Mailer’s rag, The Village Voice, entitled, “Why I am no longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’,” in which he outlines, in some detail, his migration from the Left.
According to Mamet, his own transformation began when he “wrote a play about politics, and as part of the ‘writing process,’ I started thinking about politics.” Now there’s a novel concept for Leftist politicos, actually “thinking about politics.”
He notes that central to Leftist thinking is the precept that so much is wrong with America, and responds, “This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong... I took the liberal view for many decades,” says Mamet.
Mamet continues, “In my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part. And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that everything was always wrong... We in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.”
Predictably, some of Mamet’s former colleagues and devotees among the ever-tolerant and inclusive ranks of mindless tin men, were quick to condemn Mamet for his changing views: “How sad that an intelligent person like David would write such a simplistic, downright infantile article filled with stereotypes and lacking any substantive insight whatsoever.” “Does this mean that you’ve given up on democracy and thrown in with the authoritarians?” “I had no idea Mamet could be so shallow.” “Mr. Mamet is now simply brain dead.” “I’m saddened to learn David is either a liar or a fool or both.” “Mamet is a political ignoramus who hides his frustration by lashing out at an imagined ‘liberalism’.”
For his part, however, Mamet’s essay is courageous. He joins a long list of Leftists who have moved right, including such notables as David Horowitz, Chris Hitchens, Norm Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Nat Hentoff, Marvin Olasky, Bernard Goldberg and Evan Sayet—all of whom are persona non grata among their old colleagues.
There are also many Democrats who courageously switched political allegiance and became outspoken conservatives, including Charlton Heston, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Phil Gramm, Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby.
Of course, a onetime Democrat also became the 20th century’s greatest champion of conservative philosophy: Ronald Wilson Reagan.
President Reagan said, “I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” To the millions of Americans who followed him to the Republican Party, he said, “I know what it’s like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute, and then it feels great.”
In the course of listening to the CB I have heard much complaining. The negative comments have run the gamut of…well…you name it and somebody would conjure up a gripe. Interestingly, when asking the complainant as to how they would resolve their grievance, they generally offered little in the way of a workable solution. The person posing the request commonly was upbeat and positive regarding the probable outcome of the criticism spoken of by grumbler.
The more I listened the more it became apparent that the gloom and doom devotees were those who were quite liberal…politically speaking. Conversely, those who championed the positive aspects of living in this great nation were conservative in their political beliefs.
Could I be bias? Possibly. Why? I consider myself a conservative in my political beliefs. I had to ask myself, “Am I being object in my observation?” Keep in mind that I voted as a Democrat for many years. That fact alone gave me solace that I was being objective, but I needed more just to be sure regarding my observations.
After reading an article about playwright David Mamet it provided the reinforcement I was seeking. I now believe that liberals offer no positive views regarding the world around them or the country in which they live.
David Mamet is a Tony- and Oscar-nominated playwright, screenwriter and film director. His notable plays include Glengarry Glen Ross, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, and Speed-the-Plow. His films include The Verdict, Wag the Dog, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Ronin.He currently writes for and produces the television show “The Unit.”
As an author and essayist, he has accrued a large and loyal following among the Leftist glitterati.
Mamet chose to “come out” with an op-ed published by Norman Mailer’s rag, The Village Voice, entitled, “Why I am no longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’,” in which he outlines, in some detail, his migration from the Left.
According to Mamet, his own transformation began when he “wrote a play about politics, and as part of the ‘writing process,’ I started thinking about politics.” Now there’s a novel concept for Leftist politicos, actually “thinking about politics.”
He notes that central to Leftist thinking is the precept that so much is wrong with America, and responds, “This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong... I took the liberal view for many decades,” says Mamet.
Mamet continues, “In my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part. And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that everything was always wrong... We in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.”
Predictably, some of Mamet’s former colleagues and devotees among the ever-tolerant and inclusive ranks of mindless tin men, were quick to condemn Mamet for his changing views: “How sad that an intelligent person like David would write such a simplistic, downright infantile article filled with stereotypes and lacking any substantive insight whatsoever.” “Does this mean that you’ve given up on democracy and thrown in with the authoritarians?” “I had no idea Mamet could be so shallow.” “Mr. Mamet is now simply brain dead.” “I’m saddened to learn David is either a liar or a fool or both.” “Mamet is a political ignoramus who hides his frustration by lashing out at an imagined ‘liberalism’.”
For his part, however, Mamet’s essay is courageous. He joins a long list of Leftists who have moved right, including such notables as David Horowitz, Chris Hitchens, Norm Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Nat Hentoff, Marvin Olasky, Bernard Goldberg and Evan Sayet—all of whom are persona non grata among their old colleagues.
There are also many Democrats who courageously switched political allegiance and became outspoken conservatives, including Charlton Heston, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Phil Gramm, Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby.
Of course, a onetime Democrat also became the 20th century’s greatest champion of conservative philosophy: Ronald Wilson Reagan.
President Reagan said, “I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” To the millions of Americans who followed him to the Republican Party, he said, “I know what it’s like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute, and then it feels great.”
