PrintOctober 7, 2007
Are liberals victims of SHD?
Teenagers have very selective hearing. Ask the average teen to take out the garbage, and they can't hear you. But inquire whether they want an iPhone for their birthday, and suddenly their hearing is excellent. They're not faking it. It's just selective hearing.
The idea that liberals have a Selective Hearing Disorder -- known to medical doctors as SHD (*) --- suddenly struck me as an explanation of the wildly false charge about Rush Limbaugh that stirred up all the political swamps and mud-holes for over a week. This one will sink away soon, like some slithering swamp creature, and the Hillary-Soros attack machine will turn to a different target.
So it's only one passing piece of political sleaze in a long, long series. Since we are all becoming connoisseurs of media smears, notice that there's something different about this one. Usually it takes about 24 hours to find out the truth about some poisonous rumor. But with Rush, the truth has been out there in throughout the land for eighteen years. Rush Limbaugh hasn't tried to hide his beliefs. So while Soros Popular Fronts and Democrat Senators have been trying to squirt a little toxin into our national bloodstream, it'll never take hold. Nobody believes that Rush is anti-military. The whole shebang runs against the Official Leftist Manual: How can Rush be a bloodthirsty war-monger if he doesn't love the military? It doesn't work.
Rush has about 20 million listeners per week, and he is often echoed by other radio hosts and bloggers. Call it 30 million people every week --- very conservatively speaking --- and who knows how many more over eighteen years of broadcasting? So what Rush says is really out there, and you have to selectively tune it out so as not to know what he's saying.
So -- maybe that's how their minds work. They just tune out alien voices like a kid faced with homework.
SHD explains why liberals don't understand how conservative solutions can be used to achieve goals they claim to care about. In education, charter schools are making a difference, and scholarships for inner city kids to get out of failed neighborhood schools would make a huge difference. (If teachers' unions weren't fighting it all the time). In health care, pre-tax savings plans would help get coverage for people who want it but can't pay for it. In crime control, Rudi' Giuliani's Broken Windows program worked miracles in New York City. In welfare, Bill Clinton was finally convinced by Newt Gingrich to change sick-making welfare to workfare, and by gum, it worked! It actually helped people get out of poverty. There should have been ticker tape parades -- after decades of making life worse and worse in the inner cities, this thing actually worked.
Market-based solutions just have a better chance of working all the way from South Korea to Harlem, NY. So why don't liberals get that? It's not hard. Hillary could understand it if she tried. It's just takes an open mind. So - it's gotta be SHD!
Libs are the victims of their own media dominance. They're talking to themselves when they turn on the news or read the paper. The trouble is that talking to yourself keeps you deaf and blind to new ideas. You always stay in the same mental box, creating a vicious cycle when liberals enforce speech codes, which just protect them from new ideas again. (They must feel very, very vulnerable intellectually.)
I have a liberal friend who simply will not talk about gun ownership. It's not that he argues against it, but rather than he won't even talk about it. That strikes me as weird, because what's wrong with talking about things you disagree with? This friend claims to be very openminded, and to prove it, he cites the fact that he has made a real effort to listen to Black Panthers.
I'm not kidding. True story.
The solution is obvious. It is to define liberalism as a kind of victimhood. Start a campaign to cure Selective Hearing Disorder (Liberal Subtype), and fund scientists to start a whole new research field on SHD. After decades of diligent research they may discover the cure (called "listening"), and since liberals celebrate victims, they will reach out to SHD sufferers wherever they might be. The National Ad Councel can start a nationwide campaign to raise awareness, colleges can teach courses in Life with SHD, and Public Service Announcements will make us all feel sorry for its victims. Hollywood stars will wear I Care About SHD buttons, and Senator Hillary will propose a $5,000.00 per child lifetime bond to protect young babies against ever getting SHD.
Now, economists might say that we'll end up just increasing SHD by subsidizing its victims. But what do economists know? (*)
(*) This is satire.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/
