Posted on 08/28/2007 4:07:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
I have spent a good part of my life trying to understand people I disagree with, whether on the right or the left, whether members of my own religion or of other religions or of no religion.
In particular, I have wanted to understand people who hold leftist positions. Many people who hold them are personally decent, some very much so -- yet they hold positions that I believe increase cruelty (e.g., advocating withdrawal from Iraq); increase criminality (e.g., more lenient attitudes toward punishing criminals); hasten the decline of Western society (e.g., pushing multiculturalism); and undermine liberty (e.g., expanding government, passing more and more laws, taking away ever larger percentages of citizens' money).
They also panic easily (e.g., heterosexual AIDS in America, carbon dioxide emissions leading to global catastrophe); and the further left one goes, the more morally confused they are (e.g., the inability to label the Soviet Union an "evil empire"; the exaggeration of America's flaws -- it is sexist, imperialist, racist, homophobic -- and the undervaluing of its virtues).
Why is this? Why do so many good people hold bad positions?
There are many reasons. I believe that naivete about human nature and about evil heads the list. But high up there as an explanation of liberal and leftist thinking is the desire to be loved.
All normal people want to be loved -- and that is a very good thing when the love is sought from good people with whom we have close relationships.
But many people want to be loved by far more than friends and relatives. For example, most celebrities ache for the love of the public, and while that is a psychological problem for them -- since the love of the public is not personally fulfilling and one then craves it more and more -- the yearning of celebrities for an adoring public has no negative impact on society.
The yearning to be loved becomes a major problem, however, in most other instances. It becomes a problem, for example, when in raising children parents are guided by a desire to be loved by them. Parents cannot properly raise a child if they are unwilling to be disliked, even occasionally hated, by their child.
Sometimes what we have to do to raise a good child means not being loved at that moment (or even for extended periods over the course of years). That is one of the major reasons it is so difficult to raise children.
The liberal view of child-rearing over the last generation or two has placed love well above discipline, let alone punishment. The expressed reason is never that the punished child will not love the parent, but it is probably a factor in some liberal parents' mode of child-rearing.
But there are two areas where liberals do express a yearning to be loved, and these have macro, indeed, global, ramifications.
The most dangerous one is the liberal desire for their country to be loved.
One of the most often repeated liberal laments about American foreign policy under President George W. Bush is that America is more hated around the world than ever. As if a country being loved is evidence of its moral virtue.
The very idea is irrational. Name a country that is loved. Does a single country come to mind? Of course not. Canadian students traveling abroad often make sure -- via a big maple leaf on their backpack, for example -- to communicate that they are Canadian, not American. But that is because of America-hatred, not because foreigners love Canada. The idea is amusing. Are there pockets of Canada-love in India about which we have heretofore not heard? Are there 50 people in Uruguay who love Sweden, to mention the liberals' most admired country?
People don't love countries except during exceptional and brief moments in history -- such as when Germans loved America for the Berlin airlift or the French loved us right after we liberated their country from the Nazis.
The aim of the United States of America should not be to be loved. As nice as that would be, the one superpower on earth is never going to be loved -- though I would bet a large sum of money that if China or Russia or any other country became the reigning superpower, people the world over would yearn for the good old days when America was the superpower.
America would presumably be more loved if it abandoned Israel or if it abandoned Iraq. Each case would be morally wrong, but, hey, we'd be loved. Liberals believed we would have been more loved if we had destroyed our nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. Or if we had not pressured West Germany into accepting Pershing missiles.
Of course, in all these cases, if America had sought love, evil would have prevailed. But at least we'd be loved. What else really matters?
Excellent analysis of the problem. I would consider adding that it is exacerbated by the need for instant gratification, the need for the “quick fix.”
This is like the parent who tries insantly to buy the love of his child with material goodies rather than parenting properly, confident that in the long run it will be better for the child and will be ultimately appreciated.
“...evil would have prevailed. But at least we’d be loved.”
We wouldn’t even be thought of as we wouldn’t exist, so the Left is trying again to make us non existant.
excellent
Prager is wrong.
Liberals are egotistical and greedy. They insult their political competitors at every opportunity. They claim that conservatives are stupid, which means they think they’re smart. They think they are objective about matters, while conservatives are not.
They want their taxes to care for people so they don’t have to lift a finger or donate to humanitarian causes. They believe churches should be taxed just like any other business.
It’s been proven that conservatives donate more.
Liberals don’t want to be loved; that’s pure rubbish.
I agree. They don't want to be loved, they want to LOVE. Even if it kills the target.
The second one is a good read – Liberalism is a Psychology
Upon a quick read, you’re right! That article is on target.
Excellent analysis. There are, of course, worse crimes than “Smother-loving” - but it still really messed my generation up.
I think that parents and countries alike should seek respect first, not love. If you have respect, love will follow.
I agree with Prager only in the context that most libs are more influenced by their “emotional” brains than their “logical” brains.
I have read some of their rants in the Dummie Funnies and of course they accuse Conservatives of not being logical either, but I find their arguments have an emotional basis, rather than a logical one most of the time.
To a lib, being guided by emotion IS logical.
It almost seems like a war-of-the-sexes.
(Male=Predomintantly Thinking and Female=Predominantly Feeling)
This seems to be the fundamental difference between Liberal and Conservative.
The sad thing is that the promise of love if the US abandons our committments and becomes compliant is a false promise. For instance, if Reagan had punted on Star Wars and not pressed the Soviet Union, the US would still have been hated. But then we would have been hated but not feared.
It is a very dangerous thing for a nation to be hated but not feared.
If it were not for the presence of the emotional plague in everyone, this behavior in an individual or particular group of individuals would be easy to deal with. In the current attack the dangers come from those groups belonging on the extremes of the sociopolitical spectrum, the black fascists (Islamic fundamentalists) on the right, and the red fascists (pseudo-liberals) 11 on the left. The black fascist terrorist rationalizes his behavior to his fellow Islamic fundamentalists so well that it is accepted by many of them as something desirable, for the common good. His effectiveness is also enhanced by striking a chord of emotional plague impulses residing in others at the opposite end of the spectrum, those of the liberal and pseudo-liberal character type. Because of pseudo-liberals feelings of guilt, their intellectualism and inability to act aggressively, they are quick to find fault with anything in American life that can be used to morally equate the Islamic fanatics and the United States-a form of moral masochism-thereby justifying the terrorist atrocities. Because contact with their biological core is either weak or absent, they are unable to fully sense the existence and destructiveness of the emotional plague.
While Islamic fundamentalists teach Arab children to hate America, many American high school teachers and college professors on the Left masochistically tell their students to "understand" why Islamic fundamentalists hate America.
The Relationship Between Fanatics and American Liberals
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1776500/posts
“The ones that love us best
are the ones we lay to rest
and visit their graves on holidays, at best.
The ones who love us least
are the ones we’d die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand.”
-Paul Westerberg, “Bastards of Young”
The liberals’ anthem “Imagine” comes to mind, Imagine, no countries, no property, no religion. Also, “All you need is love.” It makes me want to throw-up. When they played Imagine at the Turin Olympics, it made me sick.
...and why not a word of praise for “trolls” — those cyber heros who crave not love [grin]
Personally, think their 'achilles heel' is their desire for power - over others. Their desire to 'create' assuming 'god-like' dimensions parallels their own level of narcissism.
I don't think they care whether America is loved or not; what they want, is for America to BE like these other feudal societies; where kings are kings. . .and the rest of the population, labors collectively to keep living as kings. . .
Their 'caring' about our Military - by wanting to bring them home safely is another ruse. Care about our Military? (They are kidding us - and/or themselves. . .) They want them home because they are a threat to the success of THEIR agenda. They don't want our Military on any world stage; period.
Our radical Lib/Leftists/Demrats are not just 'invested' in defeat. They are committed to it. Our defeat is their 'win'. . .over Capitalism; over Democracy. . .over individual Freedom; individual Rights.
The 'collective' must reign supreme. . .they share a 'dream' which we know in truth; is a nightmare.
Would grant that the 'young' may be caught/snared by their Christian - Universal appeals; but once they recognize the fallacy of their virtues such as 'Charitiy' - or their version of 'do unto others'; they fall away. It can take just a short time; or a life-time.
Those hard-core; who 'never give up' . . .or never 'get it'; are those whose needs are truly reconciled with the inauthentic idiology they continue to invest in and promote.
Maybe Dennis is talking about the 'tweener Libs' the ones who are still caught somewhere in between their promise and their truth.
Prager’s the greatest —I have his book(Happiness is a Serious Problem) right here at my desk so I can reread parts of it at times.
Please ping me when you come across his stuff —thanks.
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