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Translating Democrats
Powerline’s Scott Johnson quoted Barack Obama from his speech at the DNC last night. See if you notice the same thing I did:
Well, we have a broader idea of freedom. We believe in the freedom to provide for your family if you’re willing to work hard. The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and send your kids to school without worrying if they’ll come home. We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life, how we worship, what our family looks like, how many kids we have, who we marry. And we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours. That’s okay.
When I read that, I had two thoughts:
1) That’s a good political speech. Very inspiring.
2) What on earth is he talking about?
I have a lot of friends in Sweden, so I have my Google Translate set on “Swedish to English,” to help me understand Facebook posts etc. So I switched it over to “Democrat to Reality,” to help me understand Mr. Obama. I fed his speech in, phrase by phrase, and this is what it came up with (remember, Google Translate is not perfect, but I think it got pretty close):
Well, we have a broader idea of freedom.
We’re communists.
We believe in the freedom to provide for your family if you’re willing to work hard.
We believe in forcefully confiscating the property of those who are willing to work hard, so that people who don’t work can get everything for free.
The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water.
We believe in somehow convincing people that they don’t have clean air and clean water, and the only way to get them is to vote Democrat.
The freedom to send your kids to school without worrying if they’ll come home.
We believe in using teachers’ unions and other Democrat operatives to destroy our schools, and then convincing people that it’s the Republicans’ fault.
We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life, how we worship, what our family looks like, how many kids we have, who we marry.
** Google Translate crashes – I have to do a hard reboot on my PC – I shut down all other applications, and try again: **
We believe that Communism allows us to marry black Muslim trans-sexual furries and kill our children.
And we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours.
And we believe that Communism requires everyone to pretend to believe absolutely everything that we pretend to believe.
That’s okay.
If you disagree with Democrats, you’re evil.
Again, Google Translate sometimes misses shades of meaning or subtleties of language. And translating ideas from Democrat to Reality is inherently difficult, of course.
But there are very few people who are fluent in Democrat who are also aware of Reality. So this is the best we can do.
I wonder what would have happened if Mr. Obama had goofed up and said what he actually meant? Would Democrat voters across America have applauded, like they did for his intentionally deceptive steaming pile of catchphrases?
There is a mobile abortion trailer parked outside the Democrat Convention Hall in Chicago. It is booked solid. Mothers are getting abortions on site, apparently to emphasize how important abortions are to Democrats.
Suppose they decided that even that was too subtle. Suppose, during prime-time coverage, they brought a pregnant mother on stage and an abortionist killed her baby on live TV. They could pipe the Doppler over the sound system, so everyone could hear the heartbeat stop.
Would they applaud?
Some would, I suppose. But I suspect that most Democrat voters would turn their heads and cover their ears, unable to come to terms with what they are supporting. They take similar approaches to immigration, Democrat urban leadership, drug legalization, educational policies, defunding the police, homeless initiatives, and many other elements of Democrat dogma. They turn their heads and cover their ears.
Mr. Obama used extremely vague language for the same reason they didn’t perform an abortion on stage. What he’s proposing is horrifying. And he knows it. So do his supporters. And they will continue to support it only as long as they don’t have to look directly at it. They don’t want to kill their own children. They don’t want to live on the South Side of Chicago. They don’t want homeless heroin addicts camping out on their driveway. They don’t want their kids in Democrat-controlled schools.
The purpose of the Republican Convention is to tell American citizens what they believe in.
The purpose of the Democrat Convention is to conceal what they believe in, giving their supporters plausible deniability so they can vote Democrat without being haunted in their dreams by images of dead babies and dystopian cities.
I’m trying to imagine being a Democrat in that Convention hall. I’m trying to imagine applauding somebody for lying to me – being thankful that they didn’t come right out and say just how horrifying my beliefs really are. Imagine smiling for the camera after actively participating in your own willful deceit.
I just can’t imagine.
Around half of American voters are going to vote Democrat in November.
Absolutely amazing. I just can’t imagine.
Published in General
This is part of the five to ten point assistance the partisan media gives to Democrats. They are willing to go along with the concealment plan to get their team in power. A neutral press would dig a bit with one or two follow-up questions, asking for specifics about their plans. An adversarial press would tear the plan apart, as we see when they interview Republicans.
I think it’s John Ashbrook with the Ruthless Podcast who has opined that the press only goes after other Democrats if it’s in service for a different Democrat.
Your G translation is spot on . However , it cheats . It knows that what ever a democrat says it is the exact opposite . G gets no credit for having the teachers correction form .
Trump campaign people through the RNC have done some translating of their own. I can’t explain the intensity of the almost 5o% anymore than I can explain the vicious intensity of the “abortion any time til they are 21 I guess” mostly women crowd in NH.
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I read this post and my mind was flooded with thoughts, some of them coherent. I can’t blame that on alcohol. It was a single glass of excellent Chianti after a leisurely late lunch. One thing that came to my mind was the political test that I encountered years ago. It was a grid. The X axis was the standard liberal vs conservative scoring. The Y axis was “authoritarian” to “libertarian”. I knew before taking the test where I’d score: Conservative with libertarian tendencies. I gave the test to some co-workers who considered themselves to be libertarian. All scored as I expected as borderline authoritarian nanny-state liberals and all claimed the test was invalid. I couldn’t decide if they were completely lacking in self-awareness or had just confused “libertarian” with “I want the state to protect me when I do anything stupid.”
The next was the importance of intelligence on political/economic beliefs and actions. The person in question is undoubtedly intelligent; he didn’t get the Stanford Ph. D. in mechanical engineering by being stupid. However, he was concerned that the company stock had lost value. I pointed out that since the company matched his 401K contributions in company stock, he was effectively buying the stock. A 60% match, dollar-for-dollar on the first $8K of his contribution. The oldest rule is “Buy low; sell high”. He was a new-hire and not an old fart like I was. I wanted the stock to be higher in about ten years when I would be cashing in, but he wanted it higher then while he was buying because it made him feel better about the company. Emotion over reason?
Finally, I had read a book by David Berlinski where he talked briefly about the basis of morality. I had been listening to a standard Bay Area liberal and asked if he believed in absolute moral judgements. Of course not, and he was an atheist as well. So, taking a cue from Berlinski, I asked him the basis of his judgements. He started by saying, “We have evolved . . . “That’s all I needed. Pushed on the subject, he had nothing but personal likes and dislikes.
So, the DNC participants? Lacking in self-awareness. Driven by emotion. No belief in moral absolutes, just what they like/dislike. And the government will step in like a wise parent to make it all better.
My translator came out with this:
We believe in the freedom to provide for your family if you’re willing to work hard.
–Living wage/higher minimum wage/labor unions
The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and send your kids to school without worrying if they’ll come home.
—Ban fossil fuels; confiscate guns
We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life, how we worship, what our family looks like, how many kids we have, who we marry.
–Abortion and cross-dressing; paganism; transing the kids; more abortion; same sex/plural marriage
And we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours.
–Celebrate perversity
He doesn’t want them to come home?
Leftists’ use of vague language is a perennial problem I have trying to discuss ideas with my leftist friends. Yet they pin onto all conservatives with great specificity every action by anyone the leftists call “conservative.” And if I make a general criticism of a leftist policy, they demand I delve deep into the specifics to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the criticism is exactly applicable in every possible scenario and variation.
While it would be tragic for the baby and the mother, since Democrats have taken up “shout your abortion,” they should do this. Why not spotlight something they consider so good and important? What are they afraid of?
I recall several years ago abortion groups went to considerable lengths to prevent pro-life groups from showing films of ultrasounds taken during abortions. But if now abortions are a good, and to be celebrated, why not showcase it?
Pro-life (anti-abortion, if you insist) groups aren’t afraid to broadcast ultrasounds of babies in utero and the specifics of what happens during pregnancy.
They are not stupid, mostly, but they are mean and hateful and controlling. Prison guards!
In addition, it’s an abdication of responsibility; a refusal to hold the wheel and steer the direction of your own ship, and own it when you crash on the rocks. If you give up all responsibility, then it’s not on you when it goes south.
I’ve gotten more than a few Dems, and some avowed Socialists, to admit that the government is the least qualified to decide what school a child should go to, what doctor can best serve their needs, where they should live. But they’ll happily give the government that responsibility because they don’t want to take on the burden.
Is that what we have to use now, since Rush’s Transmogrifier is no longer available?
Around half the ballots, anyway. Perhaps more than half, again this time.
Or, they expect to have that right themselves, but think other people can’t handle it. Like many of them think black people can’t figure out how to get an ID for voting.
Superb
I’ve known people who fit your description, but that is not the people of whom I’m speaking.
Brandon Tatum has a YouTube channel called TheOfficerTatum. He played an excerpt of a black guy going off on the idea that blacks can’t get ID.
(Language warning)
Oh I’ve seen several of them. Some of them are by FAIR and other groups. The best ones are when they ask a white person if black people can get ID, and they say “I don’t think so” and then a black person says “How stupid are we supposed to be?”
Meanwhile, I think this one is by the same person you mentioned:
Hold on… this is different from my experience. Usually, dems and socialists think that the government is great for other peoples kids and healthcare. But they are so smart that they can get the right doctors and the right schools for their kids.
Are you suggesting that lefties want to give their kids sup-par options in order to avoid responsibility.
Even if they rely on public schools, they aren’t the same public schools that regular people get. And even many public school teachers send their own kids to private schools, if they can.
Excellent post: worthy of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary.
Amen!!!!
NAEP testing results. 12 graders
% of Students Proficient in Math.
By race.
Asian 50-52%
White 30-32%
Black 6-8%
If 90% of Black kids are manifestly unprepared for the best jobs in America, despite per student spending parity, is it any surprise that the earnings outcomes are what they are?
And education is a local, not national, issue. No “racist” Federal administration orchestrated the educational environment that produced these test scores. These are local public schools controlled by local school boards and staffed with union teachers.
Let’s look at the results in some large cities…run my Democrats for decades…(results are for 8th graders, 12th grade data not available by district)
Atlanta % Proficient Math
Whites 59% Blacks 6%
Baltimore
Whites 36% Blacks 4%
Boston
Whites 58% Blacks 11% Asian 66%
DC
Whites 75% Blacks 5%
Houston
Whites 58% Blacks 8%
NYC
Whites 46% Blacks 6% Asian 58%
Something is clearly going on. But it’s not racism. Family structure? Drugs? Gangs, Ennui? Whatever it is, the education system is failing these kids. It no wonder they don’t get jobs in high tech. They don’t know math.
To be fair, the Department of Education is not damage-free. They impose many requirements on local districts – Or Else You Don’t Get Federal Money – that help make things worse.
Thinking about it some more, seems like it was “disgronification” not “transmogrification.”
I think it might be racism in an upside-down way. Black children are told from day 1 that America is a racist country and that they cannot succeed because of it.
You’d have to see modern textbooks and children’s literature, and the entertainment media as well, to fully appreciate how pervasive this message is.
In their desire to “change the world” and to teach the evils of “racism,” they’ve destroyed a generation of children. I wouldn’t mind, but we are not racist country. I look at Alaska, California, New York, and Hawaii and the entire “Americans are racists” falls apart. We like each other and get along quite well.
Well, a lot of black people do. But that’s because that’s what THEY were taught.
It’s not just ONE generation.
Very good point.
It varies by state, but it’s been a long time since the job of local school boards was to control their schools.
That got dark fast.
As for Obama: I haven’t been able to stomach the man since about five minutes into his first presidential run. I know people debate the question of who is the worst President of our lifetimes, but I don’t think it’s even close.