I began these three posts (first and second) because of how people were responding to the over the top statements and charges made by Sandra Fluke in support of the Obama administration’s Health Insurance Mandates; responding to Fluke & Friends as if they were honestly trying to convince you of something, rather than (very successfully) manipulating the opposition (you), into helping them further their own agenda - and bury yours. Since the first of these posts the media has shifted focus to the latest firestorm and away from Rush Limbaugh’s ‘horrific’ questions of whether or not a woman who needs $,3000 of contraception to make it through law school might reasonably be considered a ‘Slut’; unfortunately that shift has enabled the Fluke flaks to escape with nary a mention of this tidbit of news: “Fluke-associated ‘reproductive justice’ group hosts ‘Slut-Pride’ event at Harvard” ,
“Radio talk show giant Rush Limbaugh has been condemned by nearly every sector of the feminist and left-wing movements for using the term “slut” to refer to 30-year-old contraception activist and Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke — but at Harvard’s “Sex Week” Monday the Harvard affiliate of Law Students for Reproductive Justice championed the term with its own “Slut-Pride” seminar.”Seriously, could they make my point more clearly than that? Do I really need to make my point more clearly than that? I think... maybe I still do, because while the media storm has changed, the tactics, whether the Fluke flaks or those capitalizing on the Trayvon Martin tragedy, have remained the same.
What was my point? You might find it in comparing what had been cited as Rush’s offensiveness, using the word ‘slut’ in relation to hard working Ivy League law students, while the next week finds that these hard working Ivy League Law Students are festively engaging in a week long celebration of “Sex Week” complete with a “Slut-Pride seminar”, now, does that sound like ‘slut’ was an issue for the left… or a godsend?
If you did get my point, then you should realize that the point was NOT that the left are being hypocrites, but that they purposefully make outlandish statements and accusations, not because they truly have any basis in fact for them, or to convey meaningful information to you, but in order to suck more power from you, through your responses to them.
My point was that they make their attention getting accusations, and this applies equally to last weeks “War on Women!” or this weeks “White Hispanic racial profiling stalking and murder of hoodie wearing people... or blacks”, as well as to whatever the heck news next week brings, while fully expecting to be able to follow up on your responses to them with even more heated, self-righteously offended reactions, reactions which have, and could have, no heat without your principles to fuel them with.
Take a look at that headline again, who was offended and who was on the offense?
It was conservative sensibilities that they were playing to, only conservatives would actually be offended over the word ‘slut’, clearly the use of the word itself could not have inflamed leftist sensibilities – again, see the article above, leftists revel in vulgarity, their cultural signature is that of pursuing the vulgar, flaunting a coarsening of standards ‘pushing the envelope’ or 'defining deviancy downwards' (see the ‘Reason fest’ for evidence ). The Proregressive Left’s huffiness is powered across the media through statements that are spun to magnify conflict with conservatives sense of right and wrong - though the sanctimony is all theirs.
The power of the Left's accusations, comes from the Right's reactions to them, as is made clear in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals - and pay special note to the word 'enemy' - that's you:
: …the fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.More importantly, my point was that they do not make their accusations in order to win an argument they never actually made (claims and assertions are not arguments), but instead they are made to lure you into answering their charges, and in so doing they succeed in getting you to abandon the only solid ground you had to stand upon to begin with, that of principle. Here, let me let Alinsky make my point for me, Alinsky
“The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a “dangerous enemy.” — P.100”Alinsky wasn’t some brilliant innovative thinker, he just had a talent for recognizing what the meaning of the ideas the proregressive left espoused must mean when put into practice, and the actions that would be needed to do so. They are nothing new, he just reformulated what had been practiced a few decades before, and without the German accent.
More than one way to skin a Con….
One way to win an argument you cannot win by strength of argument, is through shifting the argument to another argument, without your opponents realizing it, which is not as difficult as it sounds, it simply means running the old Quality to Quantity switcheroo. When you begin an argument over whether Healthcare should be provided by Govt, and the leftist replies that
“30% of Americans are not covered by healthcare, what about them! Are they just out of luck?! Would you leave them to die on the sidewalk?!”, they just shifted the original argument - that providing Healthcare is not a proper function of Govt - to what you would do about large numbers of people who are dropping dead of being uninsured – they just shifted your argument, to their argument, which is an entirely different one, they shifted it from the One Principle to the many particulars, Quality to Quantity, Concepts to Percepts, High to Low, it is the sure fire method for transforming Steak to Beef Jerky, and it easily transforms your concern for ‘doing the Right thing’, into useful sympathies for the quantities of people in peril… and why?
The ‘Why’ is critical here. It’s Not because it will help those quantities of people gasping on the sidewalk, not because it will further the cause of liberty and individual rights, not to help you to understand them, most definitely not because it is a better argument, and not even in order to win the argument. No, the purpose is to move YOU from the positions of standing on principle, to their position of standing on an intellectual dinghy, a lifeboat, separated from all long range ideas, principles and truths, leaving you bobbing there, in the moment where urgency and crisis rule, with your attention and sympathies focused upon the sympathetic image of ‘30% of Americans being without healthcare’, which of course means any moment they could have their lives destroyed by medical bills – the purpose is to move you away from the solid ground of integrated Principles, where they know full well that you are unassailable.
This works fine in a one on one debate… but when you want to win something more than the argument of the moment, when you need to battle a whole people who habitually look beyond the moment… you’ve to go that a step further, after all, you can easily step back onto solid ground… right? When the argument is over, you could easily shake your head, and go back to your principled position… right?
The way to destroy your ability to go back, is also the best way to ‘win’ (and by win I mean sabotage) an argument that cannot be won by strength of argument, is to combine the ‘Quality to Quantity’ method with another, destroying the ground under your feet, destroying their opponents (you) ability to make their own argument. That’s done by introducing an arbitrary issue, usually either an asserted standard of ‘fairness’, or something that’s urgent!, into your argument (‘Contraceptive rights’ and ‘woman’s health requirements’ are prime examples of this), which if accepted, you not only find that you must respond to it, but must think of it as if it had meaning, IT becomes the standard which the rest of your argument must justify itself by, and like introducing a nest of termites to the timbers of a home’s foundation, your work there is done, the timbers crumble, the foundation cracks, and your principles come tumbling down.
Look at the ‘development’ of the GOP over the last century. With each accommodation it has made to the themes of the proregressive left, the Taxation, Prohibition, labor law, Social Security, it has slid from the party which won the Civil War, which insisted on Civil Rights, pushed through Constitutional Amendments to secure those Rights for all Americans (13th, 14th, 15th), the party which opposed the President who introduced official segregation into the Army – Democrat Woodrow Wilson – and has slid down into the party (though it still thinks of itself as believing the same things) which is snidely, without effort or question, spoken of, mocked, derided as, being opposed to minorities, the middle class and civil rights.
That is how it works. Read Saul Alinsky, he’ll show you in detail how to make it work. Why does it work?
Termite Taunts
As Aristotle pointed out almost 3,000 years ago, you cannot respond to fallacies as if they were legitimate arguments, they are “that which does not follow”, they are examples of dis-meaning, and if you don’t identify what is meaningful and discard what isn’t, the weeds will take root in your thoughts,
Book Vii, Part 17Aristotle identified all the fundamentals, that the purpose of considering anything, is to judge its soundness and value, and that value has value by having a credible connection to reality, by being true. You identify what the nature and purpose of a house is, and then you determine what belongs in it by how they support the purpose of the house – or not – if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t belong. The purpose of logic is to ensure that what you’ve said is in that full measure, reliable; not just in what you said, but in the premises which support your saying it. In honest attempts at reasoning, fallacies are made through honest error - even outlandish ones. For instance, it's conceivable that someone could, after noticing that you have a garage, and a shower in your hall, propose installing a car wash in your hall as well -
""The object of the inquiry is most easily overlooked where one term is not expressly predicated of another…, because we do not distinguish and do not say definitely that certain elements make up a certain whole. But we must articulate our meaning before we begin to inquire; if not, the inquiry is on the border-line between being a search for something and a search for nothing. Since we must have the existence of the thing as something given, clearly the question is why the matter is some definite thing; e.g. why are these materials a house? Because that which was the essence of a house is present…."
'well, since people need showers 'cause they like to be clean, and they own cars, it'd be convenient to clean their cars after taking a shower...', but even the densest dunderhead would be able to see that while showers have some similarity in purpose and plumbing, the purpose of a home and the needs of typical homeowners would be at odds with an indoor car wash, both sides could eventually reason their way to an understanding as the faulty reasoning is identified, exposed and discarded because of the desire on both parties to respect and reflect reality.
The arbitrary assertion has no such connection, it isn’t even wrong… it is just there, like an elephant in a dining room… it doesn’t belong, it has no place there, it doesn’t enhance the room or its purpose and it isn’t made to enhance the purpose of the house, but to destroy it – there is no possibility of making a convincing argument against it, it wasn’t made to convince you in the first place. When an assertion is made which has no reason for being other than to inflame and corrupt, the only proper response is to dismiss it, with silence or laughter (see post #2), while returning the discussion to the fundamental nature of the discussion, leaving the burden of them for making a logical case for it – which they cannot do – a logical case, a connection to reality – never existed even in their minds.
Put the burden on them, and you will win, but if you answer the arbitrary charge directly, you will join them in their flight from reality. Bon Voyage!
Yet, in time honored Conservative tradition, we take the bait, abandon our ground, and fall flat on our faces at their feet. As I said in part 1:
“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.”We must realize that proregressive leftists are not making their statements and ‘arguments’ because they believe what they are saying has any real relation to the truth, but only because they see it as a way of ‘making things work’ to further their positions and weaken your ability to rely upon principle.
They are not trying to help you to understand their ideas - they have goals, not ideas – they assert their positions in order to further their ends, not by way of arguments, which their misosophy (via hyper pragmatism) makes them ill-equipped to construct, but through your over generous willingness to believe that they did have one to begin with.
The left has no arguments or even any real intention of arguing with you (as Monty Python pointed out, Contradictions, Assertions and Insults are not Arguments… that’s down the corridor (and too the right, no doubt)), the Proregressive Left cannot make true arguments because they are entirely focused upon the pragmatic ideal, as Dewey said
“There is no absolute and unchanging truth, but rather, truth is what works””, or more truthfully put:’ “What works at the moment, is what is ‘true’ enough”’, and with such thoughts they sever themselves from reality and the only means man has of discovering and living within it – principles. The Pragmatic ideal is to take action, don’t deliberate, there’s no overriding truth to be sought or found, just try something, anything!, just take action. Not surprisingly, that goes exceedingly well with even more of Saul Alinsky’s advice:
“The fifth rules of the ethics of means and ends is that concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa. To the man of action the first criterion in determining which means to employ is to assess what means are available. Reviewing and selecting available means is done on a straight utilitarian basis — will it work? Moral questions may enter when one chooses among equally effective alternate means. — P.32”Keep in mind, the leftist will appeal to high-minded values, brazenly so, in fact that is how they attract the youth as they do, they sound so enticingly idealistic, Alinsky pg 32,
"The organizer, the revolutionist, the activist or call him what you will, who is committed to a free and open society is in that commitment anchored to a complex of high values. These values include the basic morals of all organized religions; their base is the preciousness of human life."They know the power and importance of principles, and they desperately seek the appearances of valuing them, that is the heart of propaganda, but they do so in only the shallowest of ‘photo-op’ instances (Spike Lee promoting ‘Hoodie’ solidarity for Trayvon… from a Nick’s game - sans the hoodie); they do not and cannot practice the ideals they mouth, the first probe for principle ("So Mr. Lee, what is the connection between jobbing apparel and Justice?") will scratch the surface and expose that nothing is there but their own gaping void. For the proregressive leftist the Ends do justify their means, even when they try to moderate them, they do so only to pursue them more efficiently, as Alinsky points out:
"Democracy is not an end; it is the best political means available toward the achievement of these values.Luring you in with the sizzle of steak, while never intending to feed you anything other than a pack of beef jerky instead. Review the last two posts if you miss my point, but it should be clear by now that the left is only interested in using Reason as a tool, a weapon for winning arguments, and accordingly they consider logical fallacies not as errors and flaws, but as useful tactics which will ‘work for the moment’ in swaying opinion in their favor, which is as close to ‘truth’ as they are interested or care to come.
Means and ends are so qualitatively interrelated that the true question has never been the proverbial one, "Does the End justify the Means?" but always has been "Does this particular end justify this particular means?"
Or to put it ironically: They are opposed to principle, on principle.
So who is Esau and what was his pottage?
Genesis 25:24-35We don’t have the luxury of having a Jacob, as a direct result of our educational system we’re all Esau’s today, but if you don’t want to end up in a well, or sold to a slave driver (read the rest of the story yourself), there are certain things we need to remember. You cannot lose sight of the fact that your reliance upon principles unbound by time, is the anti-thesis to their pragmatic positions made for the moment - you are their enemy and they sense it, and like Esau, they too have a hunger which they must satisfy, but they can only do so by passing some of their own hunger off on to you (ever wonder why zombies are so popular lately?), which they do through moving your focus from planning for the long term, to satisfying the urgent needs of the moment. All else is done or made to serve that, no matter what long term consequences that may cause, or cause them to lose out on – as their patron saint of mis-economics, Lord Keynes said about the long run,
24 So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.[a] 26 Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob.[b] Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
27 So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. 28 And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Esau Sells His Birthright
29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom.[c]
31 But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.”
32 And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”
33 Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.”
So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
“In the end, we're all dead."The left by nature chooses Quantity over Quality. The question for the Alinsky generation, isn’t "Is stealing wrong, or right?", it is whether or not it seems as if the particular ‘good’ which they can imagine doing with someone else’s money, ‘justifies’ their stealing it, with ‘justify’ here meaning little more than what Marshal McLuhan and Andy Warhol meant as the new definition of Art:
‘“Art is what you can get away with”, which is an excellent, real life example, of how the principles which one does, or doesn't hold, truly do surface in your approach to both Art and Justice - a principle the left vociferously denies... yet practices daily.
The proregressive leftist will exuberantly trade away the Right of individuals to live their own life, for gaining attractive privileges in a life that another must provide for them. The Proregressive Leftist’s marketing plan for Utopia is that of getting what you want, when you want it, without fear of consequences – what works for the moment – without fear of an unpleasant consequence in tow.
But the reality is that when you abandon Reason and embrace chaos, you are choosing to eliminate your ability to choose. You cannot embrace, shake hands with or be polite to leftist positions (I’m talking about the positions, mind you, not the people) and expect to be able to hold onto your own principles, or what they provide – a path for pursuing happiness –‘they’ cannot allow it.
When I say ‘They’, I don’t mean a collective of people, but the nature of the ideas which collectivists ascribe to, the philosophy of the left. Even if not consciously, the sensibilities built upon them will shudder at the suggestion that there are universal truths in anything, it’s a slap in the face to the entire leftist program of lifeboat ethics, the foundation of which is urgently doing what seems to work at the moment, because after all, the moment is all there is. Lifeboat Ethics is a favorite tool of college professors for disarming and destroying the morals of new students with something along the lines of :
"You have five people and a lifeboat in shark infested waters that can hold only 4 people, who will you push out?", they shift the argument from Ethics, to a situation which urgently requires immediate expedient action and where extended reasoning and debate is not possible – a situation antithetical to ethical consideration and thought, is used to undermine whatever ethics that students might have managed to make it to college with.
Conservatives, need to realize that no matter how much they do to ‘accommodate’ the left and gain favor and popularity with them, or even attempting to win favor through debating them, they never can or will. Conservative positions will always be perceived as a threat, and for at least two reasons.
But enticing you to yield the power of your principles to them, bit by bit, has shown itself to be a means to their getting the power to get what they want, whenever they want it, and so they will do what they need to do to get that power, the power of your principles and rights, away from you. Which is why they will forever gleefully taunt conservatives with promises of niceness, as Lucy does with holding the football for Charlie Brown.
- First, your principles are a reminder that there are consequences for all that we do, which is an affront to everything they want, and everything they want to believe.
- Secondly, your claim to such principles and rights, are barriers which are keeping them from what they want, in just the same way that the Constitution is a barrier to the power to ‘provide’ the universal healthcare they so dearly want.
They will wine you and dine you, celebrate your ‘good guy’ness – ‘Maverick’ John McCain come to mind – while focusing your attention upon the moment with them, urging conservatives to see the urgency and need to deal with a situation, “Choose to be your own man”, they’ll say, “Work with us, be reasonable, be pragmatic, just this one time” they'll say – supporting your choice to choose as they’ve chosen for you,
As long as you advance their positions they’ll happily feed you their approval and their access to popularity, and as the conservative takes their eyes off of looking at the world through a principled perspective, they will be cajoled into making a bargain with them, trading their favors for ‘modifying’ your principles in thanks, or in anticipation of the approval which popularity starved conservatives will hungrily eat up, just as Esau ate his pottage, in exchange for their birthright and yours – your principles and your rights, without which, no lesson can be learned.
- thwarting Bush,
- furthering Campaign finance reform or
- saving healthcare!
As the left implicitly understands (and which the rest of us once knew), taking your attention off of what is the highest good, and focusing it upon the immediate and urgent desire you hunger for, is the best way to separate you from your Rights and from your ability to recognize what is true. The more mileage that can be put between you and your principles, the more easily you can be led. The nature of temptation is that you don't gain power over people through forcing their compliance, but from their being tempted into following your wishes... and helping them to 'forget' that choosing ‘just this one time’ means for all time – that to corrupt a principle is to cripple it, and to abandon a principle 'for a time', is to abandon your grip upon the eternal truths in exchange for a satisfying morsel... for the moment. But since it took over a century of corrupting the educational system to rid it of such lessons for most of us, they’re not about to enlighten you on that score.
Once upon a time in America, a good professor could take a passage like that of Esau’s pottage, and spend the entire day, if not the week, drawing lessons out from it, lessons that would Enlighten their students understanding of how best to live, which, once upon a time, was what teachers taught in order to Educate their students – it was Why they were Teachers, and why parents sent their children to be their students. But that was back when an Education was understood as, not a means of training you in skills to earn a living, but as something which made you better at living, something which made you capable of being a moral, self-governing individual and fit for living in liberty with their fellow man. Back then they understood that a side benefit of a good education was that it enabled a person to earn a living in any field they chose… now… it fits you only with the skills useful… for the moment.
A Slap out of Left field - Just For You
So, now, after all of this, as the deeper slap to the face, I'd like to offer to you, in addition to the political argument, and the threat to your Individual Rights that you and, or, your fellows are selling out for gain, I'd like to point out that they are not the real issue here; it isn't even the rhetorical ability to make an argument that has me fit to be tied. It is your willingness to focus upon this circus in Washington D.C. that is centered around healthcare and the legal standing of all of our individual rights - important stuff, no doubt - but the real issue, the point upon which American has been ushered up to the edge of the abyss, is that you, and it is very likely that I do mean you, have quietly allowed your children's education to be sold for pottage, an 'annoyance' to be conveniently offloaded to govt functionaries to handle so that more urgent hungers of your own could be satisfied, but... tell me... what do you suppose your children are being fed by these people who are employed by (directly or indirectly), and beholden to, the people who are writing 2,000 page bills that no one does or can read?
Hmmm?
Do you think that they are being taught the importance of reading and reasoning? So that they can be fit to fight for, defend and live in liberty?
Have another bowl on me, brother.
Today, lacking such lessons, our students are ‘feducated’ into becoming good workers who scoff at impractical ideas of Right and Wrong, and we thoughtlessly trade away the birthrights of our children to satisfy our urgent need for some pottage.
Or maybe even for some contraception... eh? Yummy.
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