High-order obtuseness.

I've written about focusing on what isn't said or done to find out the real story on just about anything.

Ok. Just @#$%& shoot me.

Just leaving something out on purpose in a deceptive way, i.e., in order to perpetrate a half truth or conceal the whole truth, is obtuse, which is a polite way of phrasing it. Dishonest is another way. What people do when they will not let go of an issue when what is being left out is abundantly clear is an especially high order of obtuseness.

This is a phenomenon that is everywhere in W. Europe and the Anglosphere and it is inadequately addressed in the blogosphere. I will return later with a more expanded treatment of the phenomenon.

For today it's enough to single out the "issue" of "comprehensive immigration reform" so beloved of the Treason Class and their enablers, the cuckservatives. It's brought out very well indeed by Mr. Voegeli in the excerpt below – and it's clearly an example of high-order obstuseness:

More than any other issue, immigration propels the Trump insurrection. The animus plays out on two levels. As a matter of policy, there is no obvious, compelling reason why controlling the border and resolving the legal status of people already here in violation of our laws must be addressed in a package deal. Why can’t the government prove that it has the commitment and capacity to enforce immigration laws first? Once a functioning immigration system was in place, we could then consider the status of people here illegally without fear that any “path to citizenship” would encourage new waves of illegal immigration.

As a matter of politics, Trump voters are angry that no matter how often or how emphatically the package-deal approach to immigration is rejected, it never seems to be defeated. What part of “No” do the politicians, journalists, and activists who set the national agenda not understand?

The Reason I’m Anti-Anti-Trump. By William Voegeli, Claremont Review of Books, 12/28/15.

H/t: comment by tbraton on "Republican Terror and Anger." By Paul Gottfried, The Unz Review, 12/29/15.