Not To Fight For Your Values Is Stupid
Why do we fight, and why do we not? We are in a War, why?
Why do people fight? To protect their values from the danger of assault - so if you think that someone should be fighting to protect their values, but they don't appear to be, then you need to reexamine what it is that you think their values are, and when you do I'll bet you will find that their values are not the same as yours.
One way to discover their values are to look at what it is they do attempt to defend.
We are clearly under attack by Islamofascists - the Islamofascists are clear on the fact that they are at war with us, they say "Death to America" as they behead our citizens. There is room for disagreements on how best to fight a war with a group who has no "home base" nation which we can declare war upon. But the leftists do not debate the strategy of how best to attack. They do not wish to attack at all, at best they wish to imprison or rehabilitate, or better - to negotiate with the Islamofascists (who gleefully encourage such talk).
What is the target of Leftist rhetoric during this time of the "War on Terror"? The targets of their rhetorical attacks are the actions that those who would defend us, are trying to take in order to defend us. It is the sum of those actions that the Leftist's attack, those actions that the conservatives (not Democrats or Republicans) are trying to take in order to defend us from an external threat.
How will you determine what the proper actions & decisions should be, to defend your values? You identify the threat, determine how best to destroy it, and then do so. Key to that process is the act of Identification - of identifying what Reality really is. Proper thought and resulting actions must flow from your best and clearest assessment of Reality; and so the next question which may seem odd at first, needs to be - will the method you use to view Reality be based upon an attempt to see how things really are, or will it be based upon how you want things to appear to be? If your examination of reality is deliberately viewed through the lens of a pet agenda, then you are not focused on reality, and you are going to miss out on the actions and requirements that reality dictates.
Someone using common sense is left flabbergasted at most leftist comments, and inevitably gasp "How can they say ... THAT? They can't be that STUPID!?"
Ah, but they can. It isn't only biomechanical error that makes someone stupid - in fact that is rare. Philosophical Method makes Stupidity far more commonly and efficiently than anything else, and the intelligent are the most susceptible to it because it masks itself in complexity, which draws the intelligent to it just as a crossword puzzle does. The result is an enemy far more dangerous than even the terrorists - intelligent stupidity dictated truly stupid counsel from those we accept as enlightened leaders - professors, economists, political leaders.
If you are listening to people for instructions to tell you about how to think and act in reality, who are not themselves referring first to reality, but to their pet agenda - then you are in danger - FROM REALITY!
If all of your thoughts and actions are dictated not by an unmediated reality, but firstly by a desire to see a particular agenda reinforced and complied with - then it shouldn't be too surprising to realize that there will be some stupid decisions being made - but they will appear to be stupid ONLY to those standing outside the views of the agenda - and to those who do accept the agenda, you will be seen as reactionary and as a threat.
Most people look at Leftist or Politically Correct actions (don't profile, negotiate with terrorist organizations, etc), and see little more than willful stupidity - because those actions so obviously do not flow from a common sense evaluation of the facts - and the re-explanation of the issue offered on their being questioned, doesn't bring to light any hitherto unrealized information - but only a reinforcing of the fact that it is their pet agenda that is driving their statements and actions, and not reality or even an attempt to grasp it.
This is baffling to someone holding a common sense viewpoint.
Again, why do people fight? To protect their values from assault - so when you think that someone should be fighting, but they don't appear to see what you see as being dangerous, then you need to reexamine what it is that you think their values are, and pay attention to what they see as being dangerous.
Why do the actions of Leftists - most blatantly visible is the creed of Political Correctness, seem so Stupid in the face of common sense? Why do they attack those who are trying to defend Right and Wrong - those who are trying to take the concrete actions necessary to defend those conclusions - those who are trying to engage in an attempt to identify the truth and take the actions necessary to properly defend it? Because at root, all of Leftist rhetoric and actions are taken with the intent to alter or hide reality as it is, in favor of how they want it to be.
Quite simply, there is no greater threat to the values of Leftists than that of objective truth.
What is it that they DO defend? What do they attack in support of? It boils down to the elevation of how they wish things were, and a willingness and even the desire, to force others to assert those same desires.
Their beliefs require stirring up agendas of class war, which requires ignorance of economics. They seek to impose welfare statism, which requires ignorance of Property Rights. They seek to indoctrinate our children with a disdain & sense of disrespect for America, which requires ignorance of History. They seek to "value" people based on their collective minority status, which requires an ignorance of any individual sense of self and respect for your own judgment.
In short, they see and support first before all else their vision of Marxism, Hegelianism, Kantianism – whose root cause is Kant’s philosophic motive "I have found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith." Kant set that method as the root motive power of his philosophy, and all succeeding variants that have followed from it. I matters not whether you substitute "State Spirit" (Hegel), "The Collective" (Marx), or anything else for "Faith", the principle that he established and all "philosophers" have accepted since, is that of "Deny truth to further THIS cause".
This is the reason that leftists worship complexity and dismiss simplicity. The drive towards error & obfuscation necessarily breeds disunity, disintegrated concepts of the world and the necessity for more and more elaborate 'explanations' to fit them within the party platform agenda, and to squeeze them into your head.
The drive towards Truth tends to reduce complexity as principles are identified, and eventually wider principles are identified which relates one to another, below still another larger principle. Principles identify and simplify the process of understanding the world - and they make unprincipled falsehood untenable, exposed and silly, and blatantly stupid.
Truth and Principle is unifying, falsehood is dis-unifying, disintegrating and reflects itself in your soul. Faithfulness to reality will eventually call into question, as Thomas Jefferson noted, even your belief in God, and if you are not secure in your beliefs correspondence to reality, then they will crumble before it. Immanuel Kant had beliefs, which he dared not examine, and so he created an elaborate shell game of philosophy to establish the illusion of man forever being separated from Truth in Reality - in order to protect his fragile faith. In so doing, he placed it in even greater danger from his followers than he ever had to fear from those pursuing a comprehension of reality.
Gagdad Bob recently noted that 'If you don't worship a creator, you worship a creation', in other words, if you don't seek after the one in the many, then you seek the shattered pieces of the One Truth. If your goal conflicts with or even opposes an ultimate truth, then what you seek after is a lie, a lie which must beget more and more lies to try to keep the first lie unexposed. Take a close look at the leftists, look at their personalities, their words and their deeds. Do the same with the conservatives – which seems more whole, secure, confident?
By their deeds will you know them. You would be smart to examine them more closely - it would be Stupid not to.
I followed your link from One Cosmos and reading your post(s) thought I would offer this.
ReplyDeleteBesides G.B's blog I like, maybe a little more, Kelley Ross's encyclopedic treatment of philosophical issues.
I offer this quote from one of his articles that might shed additional light on our friend Kant's statement that you focus on regarding knowledge and faith.
"The picture of the relationship of rational knowledge to existence that emerges is just the opposite of that postulated by Plato and Aristotle, who believed that the most real was the most knowable. Here, the deeper that we get ontologically, and so the closer to the most real, the less knowlable, or the less it can be rationally articulated, the matter is. This is the principal characteristic of Kantian philosophy. In the simplest terms, what this accomplishes is to separate religion from science, the former most concerned with ultimate meaning, the latter the most productive of rational knowledge. Thus, Kant himself said, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith"
The link for this page is: www.friesian.com/system.htm.
Apropros of nothing at all Dr. Ross and I are both graduates of U.T. Austin though I only got a B.A. (philosophy). He teaches philosophy in California and is running for state assemblyman as a libertarian for a second or third time. He is totally against statism, P.C., multiculti tripe, etc. You can see this in his web writings.
Good luck.
That sums it up well, Kant doesn't integrate, he only disintegrates knowledge and makes understanding impossible.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link John p., I'll look into it.
(I like your icon)
"BAck when the plane went down over Scotland, American and British armies did not invade the countries that gave birth to the suspected bombers."
ReplyDeleteNeither did we after 9/11, as far as I'm aware their birth nations were Egypt & Saudi Arabia, we went after the countries which sponsored them, and that is what I'm advocating. If a country as a matter of policy, supports, funds and helps to train terrorists - then they are its defacto commando's, and are responsible for them.
Lebanon and "Palestine" have elected members to their governments, who are avowedly from, and representing, terrorist organizations. That makes their Government an official party to those organizations, and legitimate targets of War.
I too don't count myself with any party, I tend to vote Republican only because they make me less sick to my stomach than the other options.
By the way, I lump the Leftist/Progressives/Socialists together because their core 'principles' are identical, but I don't equate them with Democrats, even though they make up the most vocal group in the party, but they don't compare to people like Leiberman (really wish there were more I could name).
I understand the desire to keep to a level of Police Work when dealing with Terrorists, and it applies to situations such as the IRA, or Earth First, but Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queada, operate under different principles & plans, and with these organizations that just won't work. To keep with the criminal analogy, it's the same difference as that between a local gang, and the Mafia. When Billy from the Sharks knocks over a liqour store, you put him in jail & watch the other gang members, but with the Mob, you don't just go after the hitman, but the mob boss & the entire organization that supports them.
I also fully get the difference between rhetorical 'fun' between like minded people in the blogs, and the moonbat fringe flamers from either side. I've noticed in your blogs comments that in disagreements you use reason & not flames, and I do respect that and enjoy it - please come around any time Dana – and “ah lieek da Marekin to!” ;-)
Well said, Van.
ReplyDeleteI know what you meant, about Truth being simple, but in another sense, Truth can be complex.
For example, the global warming (or, climate change, as many are now calling it) theory and supposed cause and how best to deal with it (or not).
Most who believe that man is the primary cause, and that it's going to have devastating effects, and that the best thing we can do is reduce Co emmissions drastically (even at great economic cost, higher taxes and loss of jobs),
don't consider all available and non-available data, or acknowledge that we don't know everything about GW or its cause, or if we even can reverse it, or if reversing it is a good thing, bad thing or both (as all climate is).
They ignore Complexity Theory, and even available data and history, and claim a world-wide "consensus", simply declaring the debate over.
Computer models that can't accurately predict weather days from now, are considered concrete proof in 10-50-100 year predictions.
Scientists that dispute the Algores claims are not taken seriously, and an attempt is made to discedit them.
When data is fed to the GW prediction computers, not all variables are entered, for a variety of reasons:
Incomplete data, unable to obtain data in a timely basis (such as temperatures/humidity/gas %/winds, etc. at various altitudes).
The entire GW thing is incredibly complex, but the left simplify it when they integrate it as an agenda, and complicate the lies they need to believe to counter the truth.
I agree with you that Truth's are simple, but Truth's are also complex in the expanding way that they relate to each other (affects).
As I said, you are right, but I thought I would throw this in there.
:^)
Excellent post, Van!