Answering "Zingers" from the Left.

Have you ever noticed that when you argue with a Democrat they jump on you with one of a specific set of responses designed to strike you down and leave you speechless. They are as follows:

1) You're a racist.
2) You don't understand what it's like to be poor.
3) You see everything in black and white.
4) It's George W. Bush's fault.
5) You're stupid and ignorant (I get this when they really run out of logical arguments).
6) The Republicans obstruct everything Obama tries to do.
7) You only get your information from Fox News.
8) (My personal favorite) I'd really like some of whatever you're smoking.

I have decided to go ahead and answer these "killer" arguments all at once so I can just post the link to this page and not waste an hour trying to reason with someone who's working a set of talking points.  Let me start with an observation.  Each of these arguments is an excuse for two things:  1) a lack of a real argument and 2) the obvious failure of the Democrats to accomplish anything more than collapsing the economy, extending the recession and so burying American business in regulation, taxes and debt that millions of Americans have flat our given up looking for work - the only thing that has reduced the "unemployment" rate.  So, let's just start with that on the table.  

So my answer to the 8 Deadly Excuses is as follows:

1) You're a racist:  I grew up in a small college town in North Central Texas. We had kids from all over the world. I never understood racism. I stood with black friends on civil rights. When my own kids grew up in the same town, our house looked like the United Nations with young people of every race and color represented.  I worked for 40 years as a teacher, therapist and director of nonprofit agencies working with people from every race, class and economic level. 

2) You don't understand what it's like to be poor:  I grew up in a home where boloney sandwiches were a treat. We were dirt poor most of my life. I worked 40 years in the nonprofit sector. They don't call them nonprofits for nothing. I've been on Food Stamps. I once had to ride a bicycle to town to buy groceries for my hungry children and rode back with 3 sacks balanced on my handlebars along country roads dodging dogs.  I once got a job after 3 months unemployment, the loss of my car and home where I had to get up at 4 am and ride a bicycle through the country (again dodging angry dogs) 7 miles each way to catch a bus to ride 45 miles each way to work as a laborer on a nuclear power plant in order to feed my family.  We've been so broke we've made a meal off wild food we gathered.  Don't tell me I don't understand being poor.  What I understand is how hard it is to escape poverty when the government reduces you to dependency and then punishes you for even trying to lift yourself back up.

3) You see everything in black and white:  I spent 40 years working in the nonprofit sector picking up the wreckage of a child welfare system and government "helping". I worked with kids who were brutalized, battered and sick and watched bureaucrats shuffle them around, plugging them into boxes trying to meet their agendas with little ability to get them real help. In some cases they didn't care - after all they get paid every Friday.  I watched one-size-fits-all, designed-in-Washington social programs fail and fail and fail till it made me sick.  I saw it all and in full color. Many of my colleagues gave it up because they just couldn't take it anymore. I'll tell you who sees everything in black and white - political ideologues and bureaucrats who are more concerned about ticking off boxes on their evaluation sheets than they are about whether people in trouble get any real help or not.

4) It's George W. Bush's fault.  It take 18 months for the laws and budgets of a US Congress to show an effect in the economy. In 2006 the American people gave the Democrats control of the House and Senate.  18 months later in the summer of 2008, the housing bubble burst and the economy began to collapse despite assurances over the past decade by Democrats that there was nothing wrong at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that they were doing great things. Apparently they weren't and George Bush in the middle of a war against terrorism and with a Congress working against him had precious little to do with it.  Once Obama was elected it was an all Democrat show and it's pretty much been downhill all the way since then. Might as well blame it all on Ronald Reagan for all the sense that argument makes.

5) You're stupid and ignorant.  I tested out of my Freshman year of college, I have a bachelor's degree in communications and I had the highest GRE scores in my graduate school psych program. I'm a published author, have written more than 2000 articles for which I was paid and have a measured IQ that makes me eligible to join MENSA. I read the equivalent of one or two books a week and have done so since they started letting me check out books from the library in 3rd grade.  Mentally, I'm okay.

6) The Republicans obstruct everything Obama tries to do:  Thank God they do or we'd be in a worse mess than we are.  The president can't even get a budget past the senate which has a Democrat majority.  Since he took office he has yet to get a budget through Congress because his own senate won't allow it. He had two years at the beginning of his administration where he had both the house and the senate.  His great triumph?  Obamacare which, to this day, he keeps giving exemptions to Obamacare for his cronies in the unions and to big corporations that supported his presidential campaigns. A little obstructionism from Republicans is probably the only reason we're not in a massive Depression right now with a socialist government and gulags.
  
7) You only get your information from Fox News:  I should get my information from the Huffington Post?  ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN?  The New York Times?  The left-leaning partisanship of these media outlets is shameless.  I do watch them by the way.  I actually get most of my headline type news from Yahoo News which is no right wing news organization by any means.  I listen to speeches, read political opinion pieces, and am a student of history (you should check my bookshelves if you don't believe me). I've read HG Wells' History of the World for the Progressive view of world history.  I get most of my history, however, from the works of actual historians like Catton, Ryan, Foote and from the actual historical figures like Churchill, Grant and Einstein  and not filtered through agenda laden "textbooks".  My information comes from many sources and I form my own opinions thank you.

8) (My personal favorite) I'd really like some of whatever you're smoking:  No you wouldn't.  The only thing I smoke are the biscuits when I forget I have some in the oven because I'm writing a blog post or working on a book I'm ghost-writing.  I never bought the "better living through chemistry" approach. I'm a teetotaler, avoiding alcohol, coffee, hallucinogenic drugs, chewing tobacco, snuff or other mind-altering substances so far as possible.

To my friends on the left:  I hope this helps us avoid the need to go over this same stuff again next time we talk.

© 2013 by Tom King