Leaving Liberalism

American Thinker ^ | April 22, 2010 | Chuck Rogér

[neverdem]

With the classroom lights down low, our teacher Julie asked, "Feel that?"

I looked at my empty hands and, echoing the class, I responded, "Oh...yeah."

Julie whispered, "Move your hands closer together. Feels like you're squishing a ball."

Yep, an invisible purple ball. Assuming the I-know-this-to-be-true look common to enlightened teachers in enlightened schools, Julie informed us that we were sensing the "body's natural energy." We partnered with other students to feel their energy.

A very pleasant female student took an enthusiastic approach, and I felt energized. A guy sporting ear, nose, and lip rings headed my way, and my energy vanished.

By the end of the "Polarity Therapy" course, most students swore that they'd learned to detect people's energy with hand gestures resembling a priest giving absolution. Never did I experience anything that I couldn't explain. But people believe what people want to believe. Weak correlations prompt weak minds to preach weak theories to anyone who'll listen.

Observe.

"I believe what feels good to me," proclaimed Mr. Twenty-Something. A tiny bat darted from my physiology student's ear as he added, "The full moon's powerful gravity makes people behave weirdly." I explained that our moon's gravity is unaffected by how much we see lit by the sun. Briefly dazed, the student retreated to the protection of an air of superiority. "That's your science."

Suddenly, mini-bats filled the room. I saw students' eyes glaze and heads nod, all-knowing smiles filling self-assured faces. From basic enlightened swaggerers to lost wanderers, students and instructors in the alternative health care school where I taught for three years exhibited the most irrational thought process I'd ever encountered.

What drew me into "alternative" health care in the first place? Why did I take polarity classes? The answers -- perhaps another time. Suffice it to say that the polarity and moon gravity affairs were two of many odd encounters in the course of my journey through strangeness. I learned a great deal about liberals during my liberal period.

Imagine a worldview that licenses the student to claim to be "different" while hanging on every pronouncement by self-important gurus. The student (and the teacher) get to espouse "critical thinking" while succumbing to emotion. Neither can resist calling attention to contrived virtuousness and proclaiming, "I love new ideas. See how the echo-chamber embraces me?"

Picture yourself radiating intellectual and moral superiority. You burst with inspiration on how to run government and society -- or more accurately, how you should run society. Feel how easily you brush aside reality and seize moral high ground on issues about which you know nothing.

My insight into high ground-grabbing amoral liberals leaped when I studied eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, who declared that "devils" can productively rule nations "so long as they possess understanding." The philosopher was right. Moral rascals make strong leaders. Kant reasoned that reality holds no relevance toward conceiving morals, which must evolve from pure thought. Only when we apply morals must we consider what's happening around us[1]. I know. Confused me too, until I nailed the liberal modus operandi: Ignore truth when spouting theory, but embrace truth that favors your agenda. Ah, the liberal "thought process."

During my liberal period, I accepted a thought process that it now pains me to admit: "I think, therefore I am...always right." I remember a teacher in the alternative health care school -- a psychologist, of course -- claiming that simply by choosing to attend the school, the men in class were "more evolved than most men." Yes, evolved. I felt proud, giddy -- which is what liberalism is about: finding a way to feel good about myself no matter what was happening around me.

Liberals vigorously guard the feel-good. And so we find that rational people who methodically weigh evidence are shouted down by virtue-flaunting ideologues. Take the global warming hoax. Pope Al, Bishop Boxer, and other Church of Global Warming officials still preach the doctrine even though their cathedrals are burning down. The grand scam marked a first: Mainstream media adopted a religion other than liberalism. The media and the Church perpetuated wacky beliefs based on bogus theories that created bogus projections derived from bogus studies. The world witnessed liberals playing in top form.

You've seen the liberal game face: anger suppressed by enlightened arrogance wrapped in confusion. Were you to try to live the liberal's hell, you'd seek relief the same way that liberals seek relief. You'd ignore reality and act as though your theories were reality. Clear thinking would serve no purpose because logically weighing data, facts, and evidence risks exposure to two nightmarish conclusions that liberals won't accept: There are bad people who do bad things, and most "victims" victimize themselves. Liberals cannot abide unpleasant realities.

My echo-chamber mates' inability to grapple with unpleasant realities startled me when I dwelled among liberals. I discovered that I wasn't supposed to let data, common sense, or a scheme's likely failure stop me from falling in love with the scheme. I was supposed to let the misplaced love make me feel good about myself.

I should expand the feel-good angle.

If during your youth you had gotten little worthwhile moral guidance from Mom and Dad but enjoyed plenty of marginally-deserved stroking, how would you behave as an adult? You'd flit from cause to cause, thriving on smiles and applause, groping for childhood's defining feeling. You'd push any scheme, speak any nonsense, and feign any emotion that might impress people with your wonderfulness -- and to hell with consequences.

Looking back, I know that I could have taken a heck of a ride had I not recovered from liberalism. Surfing the global warming scam's bow wave alone might have been worth relinquishing my respect for truth and giving up my sanity, my ability to judge right from wrong, good from bad, and success from failure. The wild time might have made up for sacrificing my integrity. I probably missed a lot of fun.

A physicist, former high tech executive, and writer, Chuck Rogér invites you to visit his website, http://www.chuckroger.com. Email Chuck at swampcactus@chuckroger.com.

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[1] Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason," in Basics Writings of Kant edited by Allen W. Wood, The Modern Library, 2001, pp. 3-115.

[1010RD]

Libs break the first commandment every time. They want to be their own gods. They want to be worshiped, powerful and in control.

Every psych student I knew in college was two things - liberal and crazy. Not necessarily in that order.

[Bob]

I once worked for a newspaper editor who'd go absolutely apoplectic over the description of there being a "1^st Annual" anything.

His explanation — Since an annual event, by definition, occurs yearly, it can only become an annual event upon being held for a second time, a year after the inaugural event.

[aberaussie]

Every psych student I knew in college was two things - liberal and crazy. Not necessarily in that order.

Most students in college are liberal, including many Freepers like myself.

As for psych students being crazy, well, I have a masters degree in counseling and I would say that most people who go into the field, again perhaps including myself, are there because they have some issues they need to work on themselves. My husband joined me for an evening at one of the downtown bars with my fellow students one time. Afterward he told me that they were all crazy. Of course, he is an engineer..... But I could not disagree with him. I often hoped I was not like many of the other students in my classes.

[1010RD]

I am sorry to have insulted you in anyway. You’re right it is good that people who are concerned about their well being would seek out those courses which might help.

I just don’t see psychology as science. There are multiple postulates in conflict in psychology. You don’t see that in real science. There aren’t two biologies or physics. My concern is that they’re deemed qualified by “degree” and not by an objective standard of cure.

For instance, Freud studied abnormals to tell us about normals. We don’t do that in biology. We start with normal and then define abnormal. How many of these psychologists are in it for the control and feeling of superiority?

[FreeAtlanta]

We really do need to get the kids out of the driver’s seat before they crash the car into a building just to hear the cool sound it would make.

You sound like you are talking about the Obama regime.

[Agamemnon]

I once worked for a newspaper editor who'd go absolutely apoplectic over the description of there being a "1st Annual" anything.

Tell you what there, copy boy, maybe you'd like to take that issue up with Perry White then.

Guess by now it's pretty obvious that you weren't in attendance at the first one held in Arlington, VA 9/11-9/13/2009, else you'd have known that my signature block is adapted from the badge all attendees wore at the event.

Still you've been around here long enough that you should have known something more than what you appear to know right now.

I'd imagine Jim Robinson himself had something to do with the design of the badge.

Maybe if he continues to have a problem with it you can get Perry White to give him a call.

FReegards!

[Agamemnon]

Most students in college are liberal, including many Freepers like myself.

Sounds like we might have a mis-placed modifier in there somewhere?

That said, at its core all that the study of psychology involves is training in the art of that which manipulates emotions, and then further training in how to exploit the weaknesses of others, particularly those who tend to think primarily using their emotions -- with the final object of controlling such people.

Political "science" is a study in con-artistry which is nothing more than another school of psychology, but one should not allow what these bubble headed manipulators wish to cloak in the esteem of "science" to be confused with what a studies conducted in true science (e.g., "natural science.")

It is of little suprise to learn that most high school "guidance" counsellors and the staffs of corporate human resources departments are psych grads. Neither is truly on your side -- either as a student on one context, or as an employee in another -- although they will often attempt to take you into their confidence completely for ulterior purposes, and for purposes which are often not in your interest at all.

It's a standard rule of thumb which has served me well throughout both my academic and profressional career in natural sciences: Psych majors, and those who choose to enter professions which typically attract psych majors are not to be trusted under ANY circumstances.

FReegards!

[editor-surveyor]

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“What will evolutionists be caught worshiping next?”

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Poverty, for everyone but themselves, of course!
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[tpanther]

Well, that’s a good observation, mine takes it a step further...a liberal is simply a person that rejects (the one and only Judeo-Christian) God.