Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Rush to the Reality of Slut-Gate and Esau’s Pottage pt. 1 of 3

The Left delights in being accused about what it’s accusing others of doing… ever notice that? Whether or not their accusations are accurate isn’t the reason why they make those accusations – for the Left, particularly the Proregressive Left (Alinsky and the like), their accusations are the point of the accusations they make - not what the accusations state, but that an accusation is made. If you respond to them, you accomplish their purpose, that being legitimizing and spreading the message that accusations have been made. Even if you are right in your response, they do not lose – you do.

I almost fell for a variation of this myself, in talking with a friend on my side about this picture you see here to the Right. My friend didn't make the silly mistake which Rush Limbaugh recently did, in fact he even made the very important observation that 'Illiberals tend to use quantity instead of quality to debate', (I'd say always, rather than tend, but that's quibbling at this point), he was concerned that in posting this picture on my facebook page, I was  inadvertently making a straw man argument which would weaken our position against them. What he didn't realize was that he himself was enabling their position against us, by assuming a position ourselves, rather than insisting on sticking to ideas.

My friend's particular concern was that in using the comment of the pictures caption('We can get free sh*t from the government!'), when Sandra Fluke didn't technically use those words, that:
...as dumb as Fluke's argument is, she never argues for free stuff from the government. Rather, she is demanding that religious employers and charities need to put contraceptives on their health insurance plans.... I just want to be clear when making arguments against the left and it is completely false to say she's asking for free stuff from the government....The leftists will use that crack in logic to try to LOL in mass you out, even if your arguments are better. Illiberals tend to use quantity instead of quality to debate.
While I fault his assessment of her true position, he is right in his assessment of their response (though I think he failed to see that he would come in for it as well) - how do you respond to that?

After all, the left is still thoroughly enjoying being all aghast and aTwitter over Rush Limbaugh’s recent Slut-Gate demonstration of how not to respond to them. When he wondered whether the word “Slut” might apply to a women who laments about a friend needing $3,000 worth of contraception in order to get through law school, his statement, and especially his apology for it, enabled the left to demand that companies boycott and remove Limbaugh from the air, but it did more than that. It also bolstered the visibility of their carefully crafted issue high enough to demand that presidential candidates, as well as every other conservative politician in range of a microphone, should apologize for Rush's comments and pointedly distance themselves from him, which is a source of power to the Left that depressingly few seem to comprehend. And then of course you can't help noticing that these very same leftists, journalists, comedians, talk show hosts, etc, who have been so outraged over Rush's comments, were delightedly twittering and snickering over how Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a c**t, and they found no issues or difficulties whatsoever with politicians then going on his show to discuss his many other fascinating comments and insights.

The person on the Right looks at this and says WTH?! And the person on the Left says… What?!

How do they get away with this? How does it make sense? To reasonable eyes, they are lying, they are getting called on it, and yet they are getting away with it, over and over and over again. What you may not be seeing, is that their behavior, and their accusations, and their re-accusations to your reactions, are the primary means of ginning up the public furor they need to gather the social currency, acceptance and the political power they need in order to take that which a respect for Individual Rights and Liberty would otherwise withhold from them.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the Nuclear Freeze movement in the 80's, or the anti Iraq war protests of a few years ago (during Bush's term only, of course), or even a seemingly small policy issue such as ‘minimum wage; they accuse, we respond, and then they accuse louder, more self-righteously and more viciously. Our responses to their accusations enable them to attack, sully and obscure the issue, and in doing so the real principles involved, such as Individual Rights, are pushed to the background, replaced by whichever particular things or actions they happen to be calling for today, and how very useful or practical they are. The accusatory tool, such as contraception, things which seem sensible when looked at in isolation: 'Nuclear War would be bad', 'a barrel of oil isn't worth an Americans life', the need for 'a living wage'; become the only things discussed - and by that means, step by step, the critical principles are forgotten as the left edges their way closer and closer to being able to brush the conceptual barriers aside and take what they want.

And we help them do it every time. If Rush owes an apology to anyone, it is to his audience for taking the bait and enabling the left to vent their spleens and further obscure the boundaries of our Rights and Liberties, even further than they were before he responded, logically, to what the left's accusations clearly meant.

A word of advice to all when trying to understand how to respond to the left - don’t bother looking for the answers where the left isn’t concerned with your finding them - IOW what they are saying, and the implications of what they are saying - no matter how outrageous or hypocritical, or even on occasion, sensible, they may seem - it is all safe ground for them, and they know it; it is after all the position they've prepared for you, and if you take the bait and engage them on it - you lose.

The key isn’t so much that the leftist see’s themselves as being lying hypocrites – they don’t - as that those things which they think of as being true are never more than instances of isolated ‘factoids’ and positions which they feel will work for them for the moment. In the eyes of the Left, holding these varied, even fragmented, positions are seen as being examples of ‘intelligence’ (it's actually more will power, than intelligence, but they don't understand the difference), and when someone is able to hold these fragments together simultaneously in their mind, no matter how contradictory they are when taken together, is a skill that is admired by the left, as with Bill Clinton, and are seen as impressive traits of complex people who are ‘very compartmentalized’, nuanced, etc.

On the other hand, the Right sees their varied positions not as discrete instances, but as fragmented parts of a whole, clearly contradictory positions, often despicable and unprincipled ones at that - which is precisely what the Left sees as evidence of conservative’s ignorance and moribund stupidity. The Left sees conservative’s reverence for timeless truths, particularly those which come from religion, as being nothing more than examples of their being obsessed with traditions that have been handed down to them from time out of mind and as having no value other than their being old. To the Left, these are simply how conservatives escape from thinking (’clinging to their guns and religion’), mere stand-ins for thought which the Right clings to without thought, to escape from making the effort to do what the Leftist does, ‘bravely’, that of dealing with ‘what works at and for the moment’ and refusing to pretend that there is, or could be, anything more to it than that.

The disconnect is that the Right seeks general truths which if followed would reward the practitioner with a worthwhile life, principles which integrate into larger Truths without contradiction, because far from being impressive to those on the right, the refusal to tolerate contradictions is in fact THE fundamental starting point of logical thought (see Aristotle’s rule of non-contradiction). In the conservatives mind, the person who manages to do this consistently, overcoming the urges and desires that are ever tempting us towards taking the easier path, that person becomes Virtuous and worthy of their highest respect and admiration. But that is a view and practice that has long since become an exiled and alien view to the Left; those urges and desires are what they pursue (again, see Bill Clinton for reference), the leftist does not even attempt to integrate their views into something beyond that current single and slender track of thought they are engaged in, consequently they don’t really see contradictions, instead they see separate tracks of thoughts and actions to be taken and judged one at a time. When you call them on it, they can honestly say to your face ‘What?!

Calling them on what appears to be hypocrisy, misses a key essential of what it means to be a hypocrite – namely that of believing one thing and doing another. At no time does a full blown proregressive leftist believe One thing – or at least not in the way that someone on the Right would understand that concept; that of expecting that each thing you do, one way or another, to integrate into One, Big, Whole of what is good, right and moral. Not so for the leftist, they simply believe that their disparate beliefs and positions (contradictions) help them to advance towards a better position, and the splintered edges that are often exposed from attempting to hold such positions are simply opportunities for clever compromises in order to artfully cover them over with. The more of these positions a person can manage to maintain, the more complex and nuanced they are, and as long as they help them to achieve the greater goal, it’s all good – for the Left, the Ends truly do justify the means.

Reality is your Friend - Don't turn your back on it!
To even give the benefit of the doubt to what Fluke said, as not being a desire and claim for being given free stuff from the govt, is to concede vast amounts of territory to their attack. Did she verbally ask for free contraception from the govt? No. Was she actually asking for free stuff from the govt? You're damn right she was. She is demanding that businesses, churches and individuals, be forced to offer or provide products or services, not through honest efforts of negotiation, but through shear thuggery - and whether or not they are 'allowed' to offer them for money, or are forced to offer them for free, are small, secondary issues - don't take that bait.

I wouldn't personally bother with pointing out that they are demanding free stuff, because that is a secondary issue, nonetheless it is true that she is demanding free stuff, free compliance, free concessions, through the muscle of govt intervention.

To restate that more clearly: She is NOT simply insisting that it is 'right' for religious employers and charities to put contraceptives on their health insurance plans, while being careful to not be mistaken for demanding something for free - if she wanted to ask for them to do that, I'd tell her she had every right to seek it. But that isn't even close to what she is doing. What she is doing is demanding that govt force religious employers, charities, individuals, to put something particular on their health insurance plans, in this case contraceptives, and she in particular, and the Proregressive Left in general, deserve zero respect, zero toleration and zero sympathy for that, and as much indignant opposition as can be mustered (one of the best features of this caption my friend and I were disagreeing over, was that it came from a cartoon, and is clearly more concerned with mocking the proregressive left, than with making a reasoned response to them, and mockery in such matters is always preferable to a seemingly logical response) - and with NONE of your response being on the grounds that they are attempting to drag us onto, that being women's health, 'contraceptive rights' or any of the rest of it.

The fact is that the primary issue is that she is demanding that Rights, and I mean the very concept (Quality) of Rights, be erased from the argument in favor of various quantities of benefits and privileges being offered to some particular people, in this case women, who have conned a favored place from those in power in exchange for their support. What she in particular, and the Proregressive Left in general are seeking, rabidly so, is an end to the concept of Individual Rights, which is the only true source of equality available to any in society, in favor of collective benefits and privileges, which are to be doled out unequally to those who best beg favors from those with the power to offer them.
Pure barbarism... and not a little bit of evil to boot.

Do Not give them the benefit of the doubt in these matters, don't offer up technicalities for their convenience, such as
'Well, she didn't actually say she wanted the govt to offer free stuff'.
And above all don't respond to what they are demanding, or try to refute their reasoning - they have none, they are the Arbitrary incarnate - demand that they step onto your ground, Reality, demand that they deal with what is True, demand that they explain how their positions (and they have nothing else but positions, no ideas whatsoever - I challenge any leftist out there to prove otherwise) are compatible with even the ghosts of America's concepts, which they can't yet pretend don't exist - Reality, Truth, Principles & Rights - and they will break themselves upon those concepts or run like a troll back under their bridges, lickety-split.

Ask them to define their terms. The Stock-in-Trade of the Proregressive Leftist, is your willingness to assume that because you both use the same words, you are talking about the same things, and they use your generous willingness to gain ground over you that they are entirely incapable of seizing on their own power. When you ask them to define their terms you accomplish two huge victories.






  1. you begin the process of insisting that they deal with Reality.
  2. you put them back into the alien world (to them) of concepts and principles from which they exiled themselves long ago (more in following posts).
For instance, when a Sandra Fluke insists you are denying them their right to contraception, waging war on women, etc, do not take the bait, do not reply to what she's uttered, instead, ask, repeatedly (believe me, repeatedly will be an understatement) that she identify what it is that she means by "Rights".
You will get one of two responses to this:






  1. having never really thought of it beyond what they heard someone else once say (either in school or on The Daily Show), they will give you some boilerplate fluff about 'human rights'... which is begging the question and telling you nothing - don't accept such intellectual beggary, do not accept nothing in payment for your time and effort, demand payment, demand that they identify what it is that you are both supposedly discussing - ask again: 'What are Rights?'
  2. or from the more corrupt sorts, you will get every diversionary tactic under the sun, they will call you names like you wouldn't believe, they will insist you are using secret code words for racist, misogynist, class-warfare, etc, but what they will not tell you, is what Rights are - you can declare victory here as they turn mental tail and run .
Sorry to say to all my conservative friends, but the 1st Amendment issues are not the primary violations here, this is an assault against liberty itself. Religious liberty is secondary in this issue, and Free Speech as well. Though it is true that both are being violated, debating the proregressive left on this issue as if who is paying for any part of this, is any part of the actual issue, or even that religious liberty is the issue, is getting suckered into responding to the arbitrary, and it's all down hill from there - see Rush's slut-gate gaffe for reference.

The primary issue involved here, is that the left is agitating for the govt to force its will upon individuals, violating their Individual Rights, their Property Rights, their right of contract, and above all else, everyone's ability to live their own lives!

Focusing on any other issue, IMHO, is a losing proposition all around.

More to follow in the next post, on how those who claim they are just being 'realistic', manage to avoid reality entirely.

17 comments:

John Lien said...

Good post Van. I'll give it a try, if I understood you correctly, to bring the discussion onto our turf and discuss basic issues such as inalienable rights. I'm a little skeptical that they will be able to make the cognitive leap from Topic X to one of rights. But there is little to lose in trying.

Van Harvey said...

Thanks John, but don't get your hopes up, they won't be able to make the leap from Topic X to that of Rights, or even to reality in general (when they try and pretend to, ask them "Oh, so you think man can perceive reality and know what is true?" and then sit back and watch the fun).

But far better that they perform their pratt falls for you, rather than having you chase off down the road of good intentions in hot pursuit of their many diversions.

Besides, there are many incidental leftists, who never really thought about it, but just assumed that what they heard was true. If you can get them to think about what their ideas don't really mean, you might have a hand in salvaging a humand mind; and after all, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

John Lien said...

Yes. Some say that it isn't worth arguing with liberals but when I think back, different people shared conservative ideas with me, here and there, and they resonated and took root.

Potent Plant said...

Turn Ons:

Diversity
Tolerance
Green Power
Peace and Love
Animal Rights
Pro-Cannabis
Women's empowerment
Male Lib
Vegan
Bottled Micro-Brew


Turn-Offs

Shotguns
Mass-produced Beer
Fire and Brimstone Preaching
Violence
Heavy-Metal Music
Rush Limbaugh's attitude
Red Meat
Preservatives
Big Business
Beer Bellies

Unless you want to be square and lame, you better not endorse Rush.

mushroom said...

I like what Barnhardt and others are saying with the "I will not comply" thing.

Until there are consequences, the left will just keep shredding the Constitution. I don't think we can expect people like Blunt or Billy Long to grasp what you are saying either. So they are not going to stand up to the left in a meaningful way. They might slow the pace; they won't change the direction.

Someone like Potent Plant is probably too shallow to understand that the more government you have the less freedom you have, or that big government is big business. I could care less if people smoke pot or save the whales, just don't expect me to pay for it.

They say they are against violence, but they are quite willing to use government violence to force me to comply with their beliefs about killing babies. It's OK as long as it's indirect. Burroughs' "newspaper spoon" has become an internet spoon, but it's still filled with blood.

LeslieP said...

Great work! The key, for me, is to
1. Determine if any response is worth my time. Is the topic interesting enough, do they amuse me, are the other readers of the thread who could learn from the discussion? If no, if it's just some attack dog who just wants to attack, I ignore it.
2. Ask questions, ask more questions, and keep asking questions. Just questions.

If you push (by telling), they will push back. If you pull (by asking) they may come over - or at least they will be shown to be nonsensical.

Also...just take a gander at a GREAT thread on G+, where I was directed to this post, and the liberal guys did EXACTLY what Van is talking about. Textbook.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/115541942049354890937/posts/dZjzjAh7TtG

Pretty Kitty said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Van Harvey said...

Dear Trolls: You can disagree with me all day long, I've no problem with that. But just silly stupid comments? Not interested, they're not even fun making fun of. Move on.

Sam Ereye said...

You don't want some right wing yahoo in charge of your country, period.

You may not like the leftists but they are at least competent to govern, having a sense of what the people need and want.

The right winger has $ signs on his eyeballs, and can only ensure a few powerful men will exploit the mulitudes.

So convert to the Democrat party and support sensible government.

Newt wants oil drilling? Really? You want sludge in your backyard? How about Newt sets up a derrick in his back yard and lets his grandchildren play in the slush?

No sirree. No slush, no smog, no heavy mental poisoning, please.

You must wake up. The rightist is not your friend.

Van Harvey said...

eeyore said "... You may not like the leftists but they are at least competent to govern..."

Tell me Eeyore, what does 'Govern' mean to you, and how should 'what the people need and want' be determined and acted upon by those governing them?

Sam Ureye said...

To Govern means to restrain the strong from exploiting the weak.

To Govern is to ensure invalids, women, children, and the elderly are not subject to plunder, pillaging, and rapine at the hands of passionate men.

To Govern is to provide security, and that means security against economic abuse at the hands of passionate men in control of industries.

All virtous men will support such a government with what means he can, usually about 30% of his proceeds from labor.

The left provides just such an Government, whereas the Right supports injustice on a stupendous scale.

Choose your government wisely.

Van Harvey said...

eeyore said " To Govern means to restrain the strong from exploiting the weak."

Typical, you want to say what you'd like to do with power, without first considering what would be right or wrong for those in power to do... you'd leave them without limits, just let 'em loose with the best of intentions, eh?

Scary.

I realize that, what with you're being a leftist and all, you can't differentiate between what reality is, and what you want it to be, but I was giving you a softball there... and you really blew it. Not only did you not answer my question, but you didn't even come close to telling me what the word Govern means. Here's a quick dictionary definition:

Definition of GOVERN
1 a: to exercise continuous sovereign authority over; especially: to control and direct the making and administration of policy ...
3 a: to control, direct, or strongly influence the actions and conduct of
2: to exercise authority


You simply replied with what you'd like to have the power to make, force, people do, for the greater good of course, and no doubt with nothing but the best of intentions. But... let me give you a tip, since you may have never heard the phrase before, that 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'... but... the road to Auschwitz was paved with LOADS of good intentions.

Not surprisingly, you didn't answer the rest of my question either, " how should 'what the people need and want' be determined and acted upon by those governing them?", and if you don't determine that FIRST, that means you are not going to have any basis for 'doing good unto them', you are simply going to leave it up to those in power to do what they feel - not think (which would require understanding the nature of your situation, reality), only feel - would be for the best for the people, and so you'd set up a dictator who'd be 'free' to use their power without restraint of rightful law, and not for individuals, or with their rights in mind, but for the group, the collective... which means, wherever necessary, for the greater good, and so, as history can give you plenty of examples of, the individual (more than likely millions of them) is going to be sacrificed to the needs of "the people", as determined by those you've given complete power to 'govern' as they see fit.

And please "All virtous men will"?! Your wishlist would remove any and all basis for using the word 'virtuous', if you actually meant anything by it, you would have had to define what it meant to govern, and how it respected the requirements of individuals, so that they could be free to behave virtuously - without that there can be no virtue!

Leftists - what a horror show.


"Choose your government wisely."

Bwa-ha-HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!

Funny. Scary as shit, but funny.

Matthew C Smallwood said...

Van, you know I am a well-wisher to the beleaguered Right (or classically liberal "right"), however, patriots love their country without losing sight of their faults. There is some tension in your account of government - the "people", to be precise. What if the majority eventually decide to go Left? What then? A lot of people think like Eeyore here, and every Fukushima that happens makes more and more of them - Reason won't work with them in argument. You spends reams of paper and thousands of HTML to refute claims which they should have already researched before coming to conclusions. Is our only option merely to rant against the winds of change? There is more at work here than mere human ignorance. Is there not some way to "steal a march on the devil"?

Van Harvey said...

Matthew said "There is some tension in your account of government - the "people", to be precise. What if the majority eventually decide to go Left? What then?"

You mean other than ruin? And perhaps learning a lesson from it? I don't know, you tell me.

" Reason won't work with them in argument."

Annnddd... sooo... what... I should flatter them and ignore their ignorance and error?

"Is our only option merely to rant against the winds of change?"

No, our only option is to consider our options, to think upon them, and whether or not they are, or ever could be true, and try and understand why. If a person does that often enough, and applies what they begin to learn to their own life, then that person might become worthy of self-government themselves.

If enough others follow suit, there might eventually be enough self-governing people in this land to have a government whose concern is with upholding the rights of its people.

You have another option in mind? Forcing them to be free perhaps? The devil doesn't need to steal a march, people will follow the beating of the drum which says that they can have what they want because they want it. The devil doesn't shove anyone into hell, he knows full well that they will choose each step it takes to cross his threshhold... with the best of intentions, of course.

The only way out of that is through revering, understanding, and practicing the Good, the Beautiful and the True.

Van Harvey said...

Matthew said "You spends reams of paper and thousands of HTML to refute claims which they should have already researched before coming to conclusions."

There's a difference between what I try to do, and refuting claims. This'll be hard to swallow for anyone who's piled up the hours arguing over a beer, or piling up the email & HTML, but I'm really not interested in refuting and/or winning an argument. I'm interested in discovering what's true, exposing why what seemed so, was in fact in error, and better understanding the truth myself, and hopefully helping the other person to also.

Do I enjoy winning an argument? Sure, it's habit forming. But I've enjoyed the ones I've lost even more because I got even more of what I'm actually after out of those arguments, than the ones where I refuted what another said.

What often seems a trite truism "The Truth will set you free", is one of the deepest, most rewarding and wide ranging ideas ever put into words, and I revel in it... whether my position comes out of the argument as refuting, or being refuted, is secondary to the max.

"There is more at work here than mere human ignorance."

Is there? I don't know. I only know that ignorance is something that I can fight, and so I do.

Matthew C Smallwood said...

Well said, well spoken. However, at this point, shouldn't the attempt be made to strike at the root of the error, rather than bothering with "Descartian problems" or Rousseau, or what have you? I am not being a piss-pot or fascist here, I just would like to convince folks like yourself that perhaps this thing goes farther back than the French Revolution, and deeper than mental abstractions. Just because the West has fallen apart for the last thousand years because men exploited power which lead to further shifts in the castes (eg., bourgeoisie vs. Prole, etc.), doesn't mean that we shouldn't look for the "one who doesn't want to rule" in his cave. In so far as your personal mental fight helps bring that about, I salute you - and you are right, it's a good deal of personal fun. I just want to talk you into Bonaventura, Aquinas, & Bernard of Clairvaux, along with Erigena & others, rather than just the Founding Fathers. Remember that the French Revolution hated (above all else) the "ancien regime" of hearth, altar, & castle. And what did Voltaire hate the most? Ecrasez l'infame! Our enemies want our homes and security, but they HATE our spiritual order. Let us not merely understand how much they hate it, but what a precious possession we have been given in the first place. The Enlightenment was anything but. And you know how much of that was mixed into the Founding.

Matthew C Smallwood said...

I don't disagree with you, per se.
http://distributistreview.com/mag/2012/05/the-contradictions-of-liberals-and-conservatives/