Posted on 04/14/2013 8:28:24 AM PDT by marktwain
This blog post searches for the philosophical foundations of left-wing politics, asking this question:
The conservative movement rests on a series of great thinkers: Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Burke, Mill, Hayek, von Mises, etc. Where are the intellectual foundations of the Left?...There is an intellectual tradition behind the contemporary Left, stretching back to Plato’s Republic and including Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Marcuse, Alinsky, etc. But it’s a deeply totalitarian tradition. It’s the political philosophy that dares not speak its name in an election season, for it would garner few votes, and for good reason.The real intellectual vacuum underlies not the Left as such but people who style themselves liberals, but not socialists—i.e., I’m guessing, most Democrats.
Lee Reynolds from the Tempe Tea Party adds these comments:
Liberalism is sold on the premise that by embracing its sentiments and assorted affectations, you will become an enlightened and wise individual. A kind and knowing person, a better person, and get to sit at the cool kids’ table. Those who do not embrace Liberalism are cast as selfish and uncaring, greedy and bigoted, emotionally grotesque, shortsighted, foolish, stupid, blind, and most of all uncool.
In real life those who embrace Liberalism end up parroting cliches and earnestly promoting half-baked nonsense that ranges from the frivolous to the intensely destructive. Meanwhile those who are not beholden to Liberalism tend lead happier and more productive lives. ... The vast majority of what is called Liberalism is nothing more than the effort and desire to make human beings equal. I don’t mean equal before the law, or possessing equal rights, I mean equal period.
This is quite impossible because human beings are fundamentally unequal.
Some people are smarter than others. Some people are of better character than others. Some people possess specific traits and abilities that others lack. In general, if there is a way in which people CAN differ from one another, they DO differ from one another. We are defined as a species by the variance of our individual abilities and inclinations.
Liberalism is the heartfelt desire to wish all that away and replace it with a universe in which everyone is cut from the same cloth.
This is why Liberals tend to focus so much on the dregs of society. They wish to pretend that mental patients and convicts are the same as the rest of us, just unlucky.
This is why we hear so much from Liberals about the “less fortunate.” This term was not fashioned as a polite euphemism for idiots and losers, but represents how Liberals truly see people whose deficits of ability or character prevent them from meeting the challenges of life. This is also why Liberals are so keen to endorse environmental or social explanations for human differences. If a difference is the result of an external influence upon a person, then this difference can be eliminated by altering or removing that influence. In contrast, a difference that is innate cannot be.
Unfortunately 80% or more of our differences are innate. Who we are is who we are, not what happens to us. Our nature is not malleable. The axe murderer didn’t chop up people because his daddy didn’t love him enough, he chopped up people because that is his nature. But that doesn’t stop Liberals from trying. Hence the recent promotion of gender-neutral toys, especially in places like Sweden. These futile efforts will not make boys and girls the same. Furthermore, the children subjected to them will be harmed in the process.
This is also why Liberals are so keen to bestow the appurtenances of a middle class existence to those who are not capable of middle class behavior. The most famous example of this was their effort to give mortgages to people who didn’t have what it took to qualify for one. The hope and belief was that home ownership would somehow magically bestow these new homeowners with the characteristics and abilities that traditionally defined someone who owned their home. Instead we wound up with “liar loans,” the housing bubble, starving animals locked away to die in foreclosed houses sold to human trash, and all of the other ill effects and externalities for which Liberals still so strenuously seek to blame others for.
So it is no surprise that Liberalism is without any sort of intellectual foundation. Liberalism is the obsessive denial of human difference, which cannot be substantiated or justified in the real world. It isn’t so much a house of cards as it is wishful thinking masquerading as a philosophy.
"It isn’t so much a house of cards as it is wishful thinking masquerading as a philosophy."
Wishful thinking that we can be as gods and that we can establish heaven on earth. It is all based on the very first Lie.
So, to sum it all up... Liberalism is a demented, woefully ignorant philosposphy that willfully ignores, and in fact attempts to destroy, everything that makes us valuable and unique individuals.
And it’s a mental illness...
Or the subtitle of Thomas Sowell’s book “The Vision of the Anointed” -— “Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”
At its root, Liberalism is fear’s attempt to create safety.
“I’m not certain I can start a farm and succeed so, everyone with a successful farm has to feed me so I don’t starve.”
When I realized most liberals were nothing more than strident cowards, I no longer found them intimidating. Just dangerous.
If Obama is a communist, then why does he send his daughters to Atlantis for a vacation? He could easily send them to a farm to work. He runs the risk of being called “bourgeois” at a self-confession session.
How about Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? Are they going to put on coveralls and pick turnips?
“Understand your opponents and understand yourself and in one hundred battles you will not be defeated.”
There are communists in the Democrat party, but right now, the Democrat party is run by con men.
Oops.....I forgot “through others”
Liberalism is “Fears attempt to create safety through others.”
Conservatism is “Fears attempt to create safety through itself.”
There is always an elitist hierarchy in a totalitarian regime that gets all of the luxuries. It’s not inconsistent by any means.
There is a type of socialism, called de facto socialism, where private property still exists, but the government controls it.The libtards who do not consider themselves de jure socialists still support de facto socialism, which means that they are still both statists and socialists, even if they deny it.The foundation for both types of socialism and for both types of libtardism are the same: emotionalism, altruism/selflessness, collectivism,equality,and dependency.
The crux of the left’s beliefs rests on the idea that mankind is capable of creating a perfect society. This has been the centerpiece of people like Rousseau, Marx, and their ilk. Unfortunately the weight of the evidence is against them- every attempt to create an ideal society has resulted in the most terrible tyranny. Only God’s government when He returns will be perfect.
I think the difference between liberals and conservatives is explained in large part by whether one accepts or rejects an accurate understanding of certain basic Biblical principles (regardless of whether one is personally a Bible believer). (Many libs quote the Bible but misunderstand and misconstrue it, and although not all conservatives accept the Bible, they still hold to certain principles grounded in it.)
In his book A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell discusses the fundamental difference between how conservatives and liberals view human nature.
http://www.conservativemonitor.com/top-ten/conflict-of-visions.shtml
Libs take an unBiblical view of human nature, whereas conservatives, *if* they’re knowledgeable and consistent, take a view of human nature that lines up better with a Biblical view of human nature.
“strident cowards” - what a phrase! A keeper.
It affects the strategy you use to defeat them. Does the average Democrat voter and supporter secretly read Das Kapital? Or do they just pay enough attention to vote for the party that promises them free stuff? They aren’t diehard communists. They vote what they perceive to be in their best personal interest. There is the weak spot. There is where we can separate them from the Democrats. Who expects to be fed from an empty pot? Make it clear to Democrat voters that the Democrat leaders are eating everything out of the pot. They are emptying the pot and filling their own bellies. We don’t want the Democrat voters to starve, but we all have to get rid of those greedy Democrat leaders so the pot doesn’t go completely empty. An empty pot feeds no one.
Even now, it's probably not pure Marxism.
There are also those who already have, and who think that by voting for governmental largesse can ward off the poor taking from them in angry resentment—or the industrious by reaching theor lebep through free market opportunity.
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