by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPageMagazine.com<\/p>\n
Every so often\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0runs an op-ed by the appropriately named Charles M. Blow. Blow\u2019s shtick is to dig up some statistical nugget and then draw all manner of portentous conclusions this data supposedly support. As one could expect, the conclusions invariably reinforce some stale received wisdom dear to the liberal-left, some bit of faith-based political dogma camouflaged by the pseudo-objective statistical data and the accompanying chart or graph.<\/p>\n Blow\u2019s\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>\u00a0reflects the typical liberal-leftist mindset. To liberals, they don\u2019t have an ideology or a subjective bias, they\u2019re just responding coolly to scientific facts. See the graph? See the numbers? Global warming, Darwinian evolution, embryonic stem-cell research \u2014 liberal positions on all these contested issues aren\u2019t about political ideology, irrational myth, or self-interest. No, liberals merely develop policies that logically reflect the hard reality of scientifically determined facts. It\u2019s conservatives who are in thrall to religious superstition, personal neuroses, or greed.<\/p>\n Recently Blow published a column that illustrates this liberal bias beautifully. The statistic that exercises Blow is that requests for background checks for gun purchases increased by 1.2 million from last November to February over the same period in 2007-2008. Now, given that the period in question has also been a period of economic stress, which usually leads to increases in crime, the common-sense explanation is that some people are just concerned with personal security.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s too simple for Blow, and doesn\u2019t allow him to indulge his bigoted two-bit psychological clich\u00e9s about conservatives. Blow starts by saying conservatives these days are \u201capocalyptic,\u201d \u201cisolated, angry, betrayed and besieged.\u201d The \u201cangry\u201d conservative, of course, is a cherished liberal stereotype. Remember the \u201cangry white male\u201d of the 90\u2019s, that benighted dope who again and again voted against his own best interests because the Republicans exploited his religious superstitions and manipulated his irrational prejudices against blacks, women, and homosexuals?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t doubt that some conservatives are angry, and these days they have a good reason to be. Zillions of dollars of projected debt, a groveling foreign policy, attempts to increase exponentially the power of the government, and creeping socialism can raise one\u2019s blood pressure. But I haven\u2019t seen anything yet that comes close to the apocalyptic \u2014 and juvenile \u2014 anger that issued from the left for the last eight years. What could be more angrily apocalyptic than the ridiculous doom-day scenarios spun by Al Gore and the rest of the global-warming fundamentalists? Or the shrill claims, made constantly by the ACLU and the civil-liberties fundamentalists, that our freedoms were fast disappearing, if not already gone? Or how about the incessant shrieking over the \u201creligious right,\u201d those repressed yahoos itching to burn witches and heretics after they tear down the mythic \u201cwall of separation\u201d between church and state? Or how about Bush-derangement syndrome, the vicious lies and irrational attacks on Bush\u2019s actions, motives, and character that were a staple of not just the swamp-fever leftist blogosphere but also the mainstream media?<\/p>\n But Blow\u2019s indulgence of this received wisdom is just a warm-up for his own apocalyptic paranoia. All this gun-buying stoked by all that apocalyptic anger really reflects the fact that conservative leaders \u201cseem [the classic weasel-word loophole] to be trying to mold them [angry conservatives] into a militia.\u201d At first, Blow didn\u2019t take too seriously \u201cthe garbled facts, twisted logic, and veiled hate speech\u201d being used to create these right-wing storm-troopers. Notice again the typical implication that liberals are all about \u201cfacts\u201d that are not \u201cgarbled\u201d and \u201clogic\u201d that is not \u201ctwisted.\u201d Priceless, though, is the implication in \u201cveiled hate speech\u201d that all this anger is really an expression of racism \u2014 that the election of a black president has stirred up the inner Klansman that all liberals know lurks in every conservative who criticizes Obama. What else could explain such criticism, since like all liberals, Obama endorses policies that are reflections of fact and logic, and thus only someone addled by irrational beliefs and crippling neuroses would oppose them?<\/p>\n Soon, however, Blow began to take seriously the possibility that conservative leaders were up to more than just blowing off rhetorical steam. But Blow\u2019s examples of such nefarious conservative leaders, however, are hardly convincing that a violent revolution is brewing. There\u2019s action-star Chuck Norris, a \u201cprospective Red Shirt,\u201d as Blow calls him, indulging yet another bit of liberal false knowledge \u2014 that fascism was a conservative movement, when in fact, as Jonah Goldberg documents in\u00a0Liberal Fascism<\/em>, fascism\u2019s roots lay closer to the progressive movement that has created people like Blow. All that aside, and all due respect to Chuck Norris, I don\u2019t think he qualifies as a conservative leader. I\u2019m happy to acknowledge a denizen of Hollywood who isn\u2019t liberal, but taking actors seriously as political philosophers is something the left does.<\/p>\n Next, Blow digs up an obscure Representative from Minnesota, who advised her constituents to be \u201carmed and dangerous.\u201d Congressmen who can\u2019t control their metaphors shouldn\u2019t be taken any more seriously than Hollywood actors, and they certainly don\u2019t qualify as a \u201cconservative leader.\u201d And of course, a television-radio entertainer, Glenn Beck, is quoted without any apparent recognition that Beck\u2019s commentary is a form of political entertainment. Even Blow\u2019s own\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0has quoted Beck as saying, \u201cI say on the air all time, \u2018if you take what I say as gospel, you\u2019re an idiot.\u2019 \u201d And that\u2019s it, that\u2019s all Blow\u2019s evidence that conservative leaders are fomenting rebellion.<\/p>\n So in Blow\u2019s presumably fact-based analysis, the increase in gun sales is driven by conservatives who are apocalyptically angry, crypto-racist neo-fascists, potential Timothy McVeighs itching for violent revolution \u2014 for after all, as Blow says after mentioning McVeigh, \u201cNot all dangerous men are trained by al Qaeda,\u201d thus equating conservatives with terrorist murderers. And there you have classic liberal \u201cnuanced\u201d and \u201csophisticated\u201d thinking: stale clich\u00e9s, two-bit psychologizing, and vicious smears, all tarted up with phony \u201cscience.\u201d Such sloppy thinking is really something to get angry about.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPageMagazine.com Every so often\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0runs an op-ed by the appropriately named Charles M. Blow. Blow\u2019s shtick is to dig up some statistical nugget and then draw all manner of portentous conclusions this data supposedly support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,722],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-K2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2355,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-york-times-resident-voodoo-statistician\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":0},"title":"The New York Times’ Resident Voodoo Statistician","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Another rational liberal can't think straight. by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The\u00a0New York Times\u2019 resident voodoo statistician, Charles Blow, is at it again, using \u201cscientific\u201d polling data as an excuse to indulge ideological prejudice. The poll in question profiled people regarding the current health-care debate, and Blow doesn\u2019t like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2009"","block_context":{"text":"August 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/august-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3127,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mission-lost\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":1},"title":"Mission Lost","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal \u201cWe offer unlimited opportunities to help students achieve their goals,\u201ddeclares\u00a0the California State University system on its homepage. \u201cWe prepare graduates who go on to make a difference in the workforce. We engage in research and creative activities leading to scientific, technical, artistic and social\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5409,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberal-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":2},"title":"Liberal Racism","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The assault on skilled, independent, intelligent blacks by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers When Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of \u201cplaying the gender card,\u201d the hypocrisy that typically defines our public discourse on race descended into the surreal. Obama\u2019s whole career has been created by and has exploited the perception\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3308,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-unexamined-president-and-his-media-enablers\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":3},"title":"The Unexamined President and His Media Enablers","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society As usual, the mainstream media are getting wrong the significance of President Obama\u2019s release of his actual birth certificate. In the liberal-left narrative, the \u201cbirther\u201d issue was always evidence of the Republican Party\u2019s fringe kookiness: as the\u00a0Daily Kos\u2019s Markos Moulitsas crowed, \u201cWhat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6724,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dont-forget-the-other-entitlement-monsters\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":4},"title":"Don’t Forget the Other Entitlement Monsters","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 The continuing attention devoted to the blunders, incompetence, and lies surrounding the Obamacare rollout is much deserved. But we shouldn\u2019t forget that the President\u2019s health-care monstrosity is merely the latest and biggest of scores of government entitlement programs suffering from the same flawed progressive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/6466475049_3470b4fa97-300x214.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5307,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/interpreting-the-returns-of-election-04\/","url_meta":{"origin":2854,"position":5},"title":"Interpreting the Returns of Election ’04","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"All that razzle-dazzle can't fool average Joe. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Now that, as Hank Williams might put it, it's all over but the Democrats' crying, what are some preliminary conclusions we can draw from this election? The most obvious is that the Democrats are increasingly out of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2855,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions\/2855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}