Personal Responsibility

I'm thinking of creating a new blog, to move off these posts that I write about Doug from this blog. I'd call it Douggie Watch, in honor of Sully Watch, a now-defunct blog documenting the literary atrocities of Andrew Sullivan. My Doug posts tend to get really long, and sort of distracts from the tone of the rest of what I'm doing here. It's something I'm thinking about anyway.

I do want to touch on Doug's latest post, which is an exploration of his daughter's academic performance. The details are irrelevant, but I've noticed yet another Doug arguing methodology.

All that, just because she decided to take personal responsibility. Amazing what self-reliance can accomplish.

He is simply in love with analogies, and uses them constantly. The point is to create the impression of a different ideological viewpoint about the topic. In this case, he demonstrates that "working hard" is the path to success. The implication is that this is a "Conservative" principle, as opposed to "Liberalism" that does not support that principle.

I often accuse Doug of arguing against a point that nobody has raised, and this is a classic example. The idea that liberals are opposed to effort and achievement is quite silly. I don't know anyone who views apathy or ignorance or laziness as a virtue.

You really want to talk about academic achievement? Why do you think Universities are considered to be dominated by the "liberal elite"? Is it because liberals cheated their way through college?

Does Doug and his wife want to compare academics and success with me and John? That would be a really amusing comparison... and we're pretty damn liberal. I think John's business card has something like ten acronyms appended to it, separated by commas. I'm employed as a professional engineer for the federal government.

Doug admits he was not very good at math.. I completed 26 semester hours of differential calculus, matrix algebra, advanced engineering mathematics, 18 hours of advanced physics, including statics, dynamics, and thermodynamics... and numerous other courses, and this was just for the CORE of the program.

I just got a call from John.. He made $45,000 today. His 1.4 mil listing closed this morning. He wanted to let me know that he's taking his staff out to dinner tomorrow night.. so I wouldn't stuff myself at lunch and not be hungry.

I'm not writing this as some sort of one-upsmanship. I'm not bragging. It's just the facts of the matter, in the context of Doug's insistence that liberals do not value achievement and success. Doug claims that liberals have some disdain for wealthy people - and we ARE the wealthy people.

The difference is, we don't disdain people who are not able to go to college, or own a successful business. People are not worth less because they don't fit Doug's ideal. People do the best they can, and sometimes could use a hand to get on their feet, or even to just get something to eat. Those of us that are incredibly fortunate to be in the position we are have an obligation as human beings to contribute to the greater welfare of our nation and the world.

We do NOT assume the worst of a person.. we do NOT assume they are just lazy.. we do NOT assume they are just trying to "get something" from the government. There ARE provisions in the administration of all government entitlement programs to investigate fraud and abuse.

What perplexes me is that so often, Conservatives vote against their own self interest.

I got this picture from John the other day. He was attending a foreclosure eviction - with the constable. The owner of the house stopped paying the mortgage, and had a couple of months warning of the foreclosure. Most times, people who get foreclosed on make an arrangement with the bank that owns the property to vacate the property in exchange for compensation. It's called "cash for keyes". This individual chose to ignore all advanced warning, and so had to be escorted out along with all property.




It's hard to see in the pic, but the bumper sticker says Bush/Cheney. This is the same Busy/Cheney team that pushed the bankruptcy bill through Congress.. which limited a debtors ability to declare bankruptcy.. bankruptcy which could exclude a person's home from foreclosure.

I just don't get why anyone supports a "Conservative" agenda, when unless you make a shit-ton of money, you're voting against your own interests. Is it just stupidity?

/update

And Shazaam! Douggie Watch is born.