I said in the last post that it was pointless to argue with the accusations which the Left heaps upon us, because the truth of the matter is less of a concern to them than what they can make people believe is true - it is pointless and self-defeating to ask what they mean by their accusations. Rather than risk getting sucked into furthering their purposes, it’s better to ask
- What they are seeking in making the accusations,
- Why they are seeking it, and
- How do they intend you to help them accomplish their aims.
That last, the How, is the most important to grasp first, because in making their claims, it is that How that they use in order to claim that they are just being 'realistic', practical, that they are more concerned with the real world rather than those supposed fantasies and nefarious intents of Conservatives who are so concerned & obsessed with mere 'Western-Centric Rights and Morals'… and it is through exactly that pretense that they manage to avoid reality entirely, imperiling us all.
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ar•bi•trar•y/ˈärbiˌtrerē/
Adjective: 1. Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
2. (of power or a ruling body) Unrestrained and autocratic in the use of authority.
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Though they claim to be practical, the so-called ‘reality based community’ discards what enables man to understand reality in the first place, a principled regard for Truth, and the erratic behavior which results from that rejection, is the key to what conservatives find so jaw-dropping about the left. What's more, if you're not very careful, engaging in their arguments will pull you into the relativistic quicksand with them - if you give in to their premises, if you slip into arguing over whether 20% or 60% tax rates would be better, or even about the 99% vs the 1%, then you will concede the only solid ground you had to stand upon to begin with – that of Principle.
How do we get sucked into it? Ask yourself this,
- when they have you arguing over whether it is better to keep income tax rates at, say, 30%, or to raise them to 55%... what is it that you are Not discussing or arguing over?
- When they have you arguing over what should be done with the richest 1% who are hurting the interests of the 99%, what is it that you are Not discussing or arguing over?
Once you've followed them into their argument you are reinforcing their premises, and even if you disagree with them in your conclusions, they are not going to justify or explain themselves to you – that would require reaching beyond the moment to the larger principles and truths
which they just succeeded in getting you to discard - they will simply reassert their current position more emphatically, and more accusingly and more insultingly than before, because that's the only option left, such as,
"I'm simply speaking out for contraceptive rights [insert conservative objection here] Are you serious? You would deny that to women? How could you violate such a fundamental right? IT'S LIKE YOU WANT TO WAGE A WAR ON WOMEN!!!"
– sound familiar? How
do they do that?
The answer is that when they suck you into discussing and arguing over their particulars, one more outrageous than the last, what you are
NOT discussing, or even thinking about, is whether or not a government that is concerned with the liberty and Rights of its citizens, should consider having such a power in the first place. What
you are not arguing or discussing is whether or not such powers and actions are compatible with "Equal Rights for All", what
you are not arguing or discussing is whether or not it is Right to even discuss dealing with any percentage of the population in a more, or less, favorable manner, than any other percentage of the population; in short, what you
are not discussing or thinking about, is whether such actions are in any way compatible with your fundamental principles, and the reason why you are not discussing or arguing those important fundamental questions, is because you allowed their attention getting, but unimportant non-essential particulars, to make you forget to consult your principles.
When you mislay your moral compass of Right and Wrong, you become lost at sea. For Conservatives, that's a problem. For Leftists, that's their destination.
For the proregressive leftist, when conservatives oppose them, when they line up detailed arguments about why it is that what they say can’t be true (which, remember, was never a concern of theirs to begin with) they aren’t going to refute that argument, they will simply accuse their opponent over the
real reasons (the hidden code words!) that conservatives are attacking them - and if you pay attention, you'll notice they are making your motivations into being decidedly non-conservative ones (that'll be a key issue in my next post on this).
The DailyKos recently had
a good example of this tactic in action with one of their moon-bat’s explanations of why it was ok that Bill Maher insulted Sarah Palin, and yet how it was truly shocking that Rush Limbaugh insulted Ms. Sandra Fluke – sorry for the language, it’s his:
“When Rush called Sandra a slut and a prostitute he was bullying an powerless innocent.
When Bill called Sarah a twat and a cunt he was bullying a powerful bully.”
David Axelrod, smearing lipstick on the proregressive pig, gave what amounted
to the same position, that:
“"But understand that these words that Maher has used in his stand-up act are a little bit different than — not excusable in any way — but different than a guy with 23 million radio listeners using his broadcast platform to malign a young woman for speaking her mind in the most — in the most inappropriate grotesque ways. And and nor does Bill Maher play the role in the ... Democratic Party that Rush Limbaugh plays in the Republican Party, where he's really the de facto boss of the party. ”
, prettier words more finely spun into glossier lipstick, but it’s still a Pig.
Still, the Conservative, when presented with these statements, will typically bristle as if they were arguments that expressed ideas concerned with reality, and then work to expose their errors – errors being those points where their argument departs from reality – and we’ll work our darndest to show how Fluke was
in fact not innocent, that she
selected Georgetown in order to cause an incident, and that Palin has never used her power to attack anyone or to shut anyone down, that Mahr himself has a show which he uses to provide
powerful politicians and other ‘opinion leaders’ a platform to promote those positions he agrees with, and ridicule those he doesn't, to millions of viewers. But the fact is that even if the conservative were to write an airtight brief proving that and more... the leftist will simply dismiss it as being mean-spirited, or some such, dropping the conservative’s jaw yet again.
Why? Because we miss their point entirely: the reasoning behind their statements, and the supposed argument of ideas, is irrelevant to the Left, such reasoning is of concern only to those who believe that Ideas have a basis in reality and are important because of that – the left does not. The left believes that ideas express positions, not an understanding of what is real and true, but of what they’d like to be real and feel they can get away with making work for the moment. The Left holds Positions;
NOT , strictly speaking, Ideas, but opinions which are popularly agreed to – and in such a view it’s not the positions that need explaining – they are simply assumed to be ‘correct’ because the Leftist feels that they are. To their minds their positions are improved not by the demonstrable quality of their argument, but by what passes for conviction amongst the left, large quantities of like minded others who agree with them (hence their almost talismanic regard for the power of polls) – and with such a scale of value, only the positions and motivation for upholding, or attacking, those positions matters.
When the conservative sees the words ‘bully’ and ‘innocent’, their thinking is directed to the meaning of the concepts involved, for instance,
"Hmmm... to bully means to force someone against their will, to initiate Force against someone means violating a persons Rights, Rights derive from the essential nature of man as a reasoning being, Reason requires choosing to ask questions, checking your answers and assumptions against reality, checking to see that you don't go astray and so arrive at what is True, and if true, acting in accordance with that. If that is True, is anything else related to this that raises contradictions and would indicate an error? Does it integrate with other concepts and reasoning's... citizenship? Manners?..."
And so on. Whether or not a person does that implicitly or explicitly, well or poorly, that is the nature of conservative thought, of Western Thought, the nature of logic - if a person was engaging in bullying behavior, forcibly violating the rights of others, a conservative would have to acknowledge that and stop defending them, or be a hypocrite. Conservatism requires Principles and and a respect for Truths that extend and integrate with other concepts and situation.
The dyed in the wool proregressive leftists doesn't go through that process. They don't seek long range, integrated reasoning and cohesive answers, they simply ask whether or not a person is for, or against, the current position of the Left, and if not, attacks them, somewhat like this:
I want this, it'll get me that. Others will support me on it. Is this guy arguing with me a conservative? Have they done or said anything that in anyway can be construed or spun in a mean spirited way? Is there anything they've said, that on its own would resemble that? Is there?! Then that'll work for the moment, "You're a Bully!" Boom Winning!
The leftist is not looking for answers, but for doubts, doubts that can be humored at will, arbitrarily, doubts are what enable them to wish for how things should or shouldn't be - as the old Capital Hill button said, 'Reality is negotiable', and they negotiate unilaterally, dropping the conservative’s jaw yet again.
We shouldn't be surprised though, the truth of the matter was never their point, accomplishing the stirring up of opposition was, and that opposition chips away at the public’s perception of what they are opposing. See Bill Lind’s excellent article,
Political Correctness: Cultural Marxism for a deeper explanation, but in a nutshell, they are practicing 'Critical Theory', as in "Critical Race Theory", and every other variation that has evolved from Descartes original 'Method of Doubt':
" What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down"
'Is it True?' is a question that is entirely beside the point for the leftist, as Nancy Pelosi so eloquently demonstrated when she was asked where in the constitution the authorization for ObamaCare
could be found, she replied:
“Are you serious? Are you Serious?!”
Translation: ‘
Do you really mean really? Who cares! What is important is that it helps get what we want and helps sully and silence those who we oppose!’
Their Position is what is important to the left, and they do not seek or desire any basis in reality for it – they Want it. Period.
Dismiss the Arbitrary
So here we are, yet again, what do I mean by ‘The Left’, or the Proregressives? Aren't there 'conservatives' who behave this way as well? Yes there are, in fact if you went to college, unless you were forearmed, it's highly unlikely that you don't have a touch of it yourself, which is why when I use those terms, I’m not referring to only Democrats or even Proregressives, or excluding those who place themselves on the Right, I am instead referring to all of those whose thoughts follow from the broad, fundamental philosophical principles (!) which formed, and which are peddled by, modern philosophy.
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“There is also a third kind of tyranny, which is the most typical form, and is the counterpart of the perfect monarchy. This tyranny is just that arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or better, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will. No freeman, if he can escape from it, will endure such a government. ” Aristotle Politics Book IV
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From Descartes, Rousseau & Hume, to Bentham, Kant, Hegel and all those who have followed in their footsteps, such as J.S. Mill, Marx & Keynes, this includes not a few amongst those of the Right and of Libertarians as well (Mill in particular, is admired by many among the Right and Libertarians, as a paragon of ‘Classical Liberalism’ – but in fact he was not, he was the one who ended the movement and in his own life as well, going to the grave as a socialist).
The people who learned their reasoning from these guides, are people who, in all of their fundamentals, promote the rule of unreason, the arbitrary desire over reality and that is the rule of power, it is the elevation of the arbitrary to a ‘respectable’ option, or as the New York Times said last year, it is using ‘ "
Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth"’, and sadly the most successful means of peddling it, is that of America’s chief contribution to modern philosophy, Pragmatism, best summarized by one of its originators and popularizers, John Dewey – the Father of Modern American Education (you wonder why our schools are what they are),
as being
“There is no absolute and unchanging truth, but rather, truth is what works”
, or in other words “
What works at the moment, is what is ‘true’ enough” – which amounts to the highly ironic elimination of principle…
on principle.
Pragmatism buys them the ability to decide upon how one particular thing appears at that particular moment, without worrying about the next moment; it frees them from having to be consistent in either thought or deed that extends beyond the moment, and as we see daily, such a narrow minded, short term view, is compatible with Power only, and is entirely incompatible with liberty.
But it takes thinking beyond the moment, it takes having a regard for what is true, over what you wish were so, to be able to even form complex conceptual hierarchies, such as the Good, Beautiful and True, to see the unity between them, let alone concepts such as Individual Rights, Property Rights, Right Reason and Natural Law. The left is literally blind to the fact that an Income Tax is a violation of Individual Rights or that Property Rights are the basis of Liberty. Do most conservatives see the ties between these concepts today? Sadly, not so many, no... but that is because they haven't been taught them, our schools having discarded all reference to such matters over the last century or two, but they
could understand them if taught, while the leftist, bound to what works for the moment, will see no further than the tangible particulars in front of their face and burning in their desires. Individual Rights and particularly Property Rights, require a respect for Reality, a passion for Truth and an understanding of, and willingness and desire to abide by Principles which extend beyond the given moment, they are the means of pursuing happiness, which cannot be had without them.
Such a short term, narrowly focused view gives a person a dangerous sense of certainty, a hubristic approach to life that says “
If I don’t see it, it ain’t so”, as is on display with quick witted but exceedingly shallow sorts such as Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher, to whom some of the wisest people in all of history, such as Thomas Aquinas are dismissed out of hand
“They believed in talking snakes… I should listen to him?!”
. It can also be seen more alarmingly in those many instances of regulations gone wild, such as are pointed out in John Stossel’s “
Illegal Everything, again and again you see a perspective which refuses to look beyond the fixed particulars involved. '
Something is being sold without a mfg license”, the fact that it's Lemonade in a lemonade stand, or Girl Scout Cookies being sold on the front lawn of two children.. cannot make it past their particularized and dis-integrated point of view.
Their self-satisfied, self-sufficient and underfunded excuse for ‘common sense’ is what enables the leftist to believe that when Bill Maher refers to Sarah Palin as a despicable conservative, he is simply ‘
speaking truth to power’ (what an embarrassingly childish phrase, I've always expected it to be followed by "
But MOM! I'm ELEVEN years old!"), and justifies any other insult that comes to mind.
That is the Left. It is always and relentlessly seeking to breakdown any and every far reaching or long term rule or custom or anything else which holds up standards which are concerned with the long term. Modesty, manners, respect for parents, respect for authority, postponing engaging in various activities until an adult or married or anything else – to whatever extent something is based upon the long term and wider truths, by their very nature they are in opposition to and frustrate what can pragmatically be done now,
right now, to
make something work! - for the moment.
There is no need for conspiracies here, no need for organized cabals, it is simply what results when you seek what you want, more assiduously than your respect for what is and must be – when you put your desires over what you know to be True, you will begin a progressive collapse from the highest, broadest and deepest of integrated understandings possible of life and your place in it, downwards to the shallowest, shortest term, most particularized of desires focused upon pleasure and power you can achieve for the moment – that is just the way ideas work out when put into practice. The expediency of the moment is the fulfillment of the desires they seek - that is the only ‘Truth’ that can be cared about by those who willfully seek the short term over the long term, stimulation over happiness – Principles, in-depth concepts, logic, even reality itself, come into opposition with the Left, and it is unavoidably so.
The best way to rid ourselves of the Proregressive Left, is through the same method that they used to gain a foothold in America in the first place – through Education. But this time that Education must be one that respects reality, as a whole, rather than one that denies it, one track of thought at a time.
Left Alone
So how do you respond to the left, whose accusations are not based in reality, but only in how they arbitrarily want reality to be? One clue can be found in one of the Founding Fathers of Western Civilization, Aristotle, who said that the only proper response to an arbitrary statement, was to not respond to it, but to dismiss it out of hand as being arbitrary, and he’s right.
You cannot correct the arbitrary – it isn't that it's false, it's that
it isn't even false - correction requires an adherence to reality that the arbitrary has by its nature discarded. It's as if someone told you they were using 2+7 = 4, not because they thought it actually added up to 4, but because they wanted it to, they like 7's and don't think it's used often enough. What can you do with that? You can't argue with that, that would require their having a concern for what numbers actually signify, they don't care if it adds up, they like the look and they want you to accept their arbitrary whim. As Aristotle said, you can't argue with that, you simply dismiss them. However Aristotle was never faced with people who buy ink by the barrel and video by the mega bandwidth… we do have to respond, but how?
Don’t bother pointing out that their statement is false – that implies an attempt at logical reasoning which they never even tried for, and as Rush found out, it only spreads the accusation - as with our arbitrary mathematician, they don't care that 2+7=4 is wrong, they just want people talking about 7's, and your arguing with them about it accomplishes their purpose.
That is ‘the How’ of their method,
that is how they enlist your aid in helping them to spread their accusations, like a virus - you spread it by replying to it, your treating their arbitrary positions as worthy of arguing against, always,
always works to
their favor in the end.
Don’t play their game, make them play by yours, and you do that, not by responding that contraception is not a right, but by asking them to define what a Right is, and then asking them to define the basis for that. Don’t reply that contraception is not a right, laugh at them - after all they did just say something no more sensible than 2+7=4 - and say something like:
“Contraception’s purpose is to turn procreation into recreation... you want a constitutional right to recreational equipment? You're seriously asking for a governmental policy on recreational sex? What next, Dept of Homeland Orgasmic Delight?!”
, and then bring them back to reality,
“It's not possible that we're talking about the same things here, what is it that you think a Right is?”
, and if they balk,
" What, you just want to hear the sound of your own voice? Let's not waste time, make this mean something, what do you think a Right is?"
The real answer to the question of ‘
how do you win an argument with a proregressive leftist?’ is that you
cannot win an argument with a leftist, the Left cannot be defeated… but it can be dismissed, it can be left behind, it can be replaced, by refusing to carry it any further forward on the strength of your own willingness to grant them legitimacy.
The truth is that we’ll never be able to defeat the left, but as its adherents disappear through embarrassment and attrition, it can be replaced with people who respect reality and revere the Truth.
Allow the Left to be left behind.
