The Country Is Being Dragged - Kicking And Screaming - To The Left!

Is the government being dragged to the left? It's leaning decidedly to the right in this view. And that lady's sign is truth-telling at its best.

The absolute unwillingness, or refusal, to acknowledge the truth of what is right in front of our collective eyes is astounding, baffling, bewildering and mind-boggling. It gets dangerous when folks act on the belief that up is down, the world is flat, and that in Washington, the left is radical.

The political, governing left is not radical, it's not even remotely progressive. Just ask all those Goldman-Sachs folks appointed to high places. Or Arlen Specter.

That reaction comes after reading a story telling of a new conservative-centric web site - Ricochet - launching soon. Ricochet is designed as an "online conversation that is akin to a conservative cocktail party." That's the goal, to show how the collective right is funny, thoughtful, engaging and doggone it, people like us! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37189215/ns/politics/

A statement in this article made me roll my eyes. It's attributed to Ricochet honcho Peter Robinson, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan (I'm sure he's been employed elsewhere the last couple of decades or so - but maybe this job is the best conservative credential he could produce): "At a time when the country is being dragged to the left by Washington and mainstream media, this is another way to fight back."

That statement beggars belief. America is being dragged to the left?! Conservatives must fight back?!? I can think of four major Obama Administration accomplishments - three with the assent of a allegedly-liberal Democratic majority Congress - that should please every conservative of every stripe. Why fight when you're already winning?

1. Congress mandated that every American purchase a broken private-sector product: health insurance. PURCHASE, as in spend money in a capitalist system, as in turn a profit for a company, as in no money, no service. A very conservative approach – everyone pays, cash on the barrel! Don't dare think about distributing a societal benefit equally, paid for by taxes – that would be left-leaning, wouldn't it?

2. Continuing to spend over $500 billion per year, every year, on the War Department - very liberal move there. Maintaining hundreds of thousands of troops, and hundreds of thousands of private contractors on the taxpayer dime, in an illegal occupation of two foreign countries - if that's a left position, what would the right-wing stand be? Prolonging massive military actions and paying billions to for-profit companies to assist that process - a war to procure resources and a tidy private profit in one package! Which part don't conservatives like?

3. The President has offered an energy bill that advocates more offshore and inland oil drilling, more coal burning, and the construction of new nuclear power plants. And he’s apparently done little to get the Department of Interior to end its incredibly automatic rubber-stamp policy towards extraction industry regulation. Again, moves that most left-leaners have been advocating for years!

4. The President and Congress agree - civil rights are secondary, and the most privacy-invasive laws in American history must be maintained! So the alleged leftist Dems agree with the GOP - the Patriot Act must be extended, domestic surveillance must be maintained, and the government has the right to arrest anyone on the planet, anytime, on executive order alone. Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, Dick Cheney is smiling.

However, this statement from the article is absolutely true:

"In addition, Obama has been in the White House long enough to convince people of the direction he's taking America in..."

That he has. Only folks totally committed to blindered thinking could possibly look at the evidence and maintain that the Obama administration is liberal verging on socialist. (And it works both ways - the president has a lot of unblinking, unthinking supporters, as well.)

Or is this ridiculous position being advocated by those who see a way to gain more power and money by exploiting those who would rather yell than think? So who is funding Ricochet? The fellows quoted in the article are just the faces. Follow the money, and maybe we'll find a cozy relationship with Tea Party funders?