Ever Wonder Why Good, Smart Libs Choose Evil?

[cereb]

"The fact that so few care to hear it, actually confirms the talk's central theme. Liberalism cannot abide truth, or rationality. To do so undermines peace and tranquility. "


<sigh>

Paul, what it actually means is that many of the folks who identify as Liberal have simply grown tired of attempting any sort of reasonable discussion with you on this topic. You come out of the gate with flailing fists like a 5 year old in his first throw down just hoping to hit something. You disguise your cheap shots with dishonest pleas for "honest debate and dialog" which are painfully transparent. There is nothing honest about that. The non-participation of others in your poorly constructed little battles where ultimately you throw out a self proclaimed victory before post # 10 is not an indication of anything more than a refusal of the smart folks to engage in this persistent insanity.

[Jaguar]

May 12, 2012 19:04:04 GMT -5 moon/Laura said:

May 12, 2012 17:24:34 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Liberalism's central tenant seems to be that we not insist that we are "right"
-----------------------
For the 60th time, Paul.......it's TENET.
Tenants rent apartments.

there goes his assertion that he's SMART! bwahahahhah!

[Jaguar]

May 12, 2012 15:54:05 GMT -5 moon/Laura said:

almost every liberal I've ever met is basically the same as me in their personal life. They're smart. They're intelligent. They're loving and caring with their family and friends. They're legitimately good people

all i can say is "don't break your arm patting yourself on the back"

May 12, 2012 16:11:59 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

You've got a point, moonbeam. I don't know that I ever read of Jesus bragging.

[Jaguar]

May 12, 2012 19:16:21 GMT -5 cereb said:

"The fact that so few care to hear it, actually confirms the talk's central theme. Liberalism cannot abide truth, or rationality. To do so undermines peace and tranquility. "


<sigh>

Paul, what it actually means is that many of the folks who identify as Liberal have simply grown tired of attempting any sort of reasonable discussion with you on this topic. You come out of the gate with flailing fists like a 5 year old in his first throw down just hoping to hit something. You disguise your cheap shots with dishonest pleas for "honest debate and dialog" which are painfully transparent. There is nothing honest about that. The non-participation of others in your poorly constructed little battles where ultimately you throw out a self proclaimed victory before post # 10 is not an indication of anything more than a refusal of the smart folks to engage in this persistent insanity.

[Don Perignon]

Missionaries often preach their dogma with the aim of recruiting converts.
And being a Missionary is a Noble Cause (especially to their Missionary peers).
The "cult initiates" take their preaching very seriously... if they acquire converts it's a notch on their belt. It bolsters their sense of self-esteem.
The "Limbaugh's Witnesses" cultists can very persistent.
"Testify!"

[Opti]

May 12, 2012 11:18:00 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

May 12, 2012 10:56:48 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

... a former liberal New York Jew ...

former liberal?
former New Yorker?
former Jew?
or all three?

I can understand how pointing out he was a former liberal would be germane to a liberal/conservative discussion but what is the significance of pointing out he is/was from New York?

I have to admit this one puzzled me because I don't drink their koolaid. I have no idea why someone would think being from New York or being Jewish would automatically bolster their liberal credentials. When I think of Orthodox Jews my next thought isn't social liberal or anything like that.

It probably has nothing to do with liberals and everything to do with the made up belief that there exists a right to left political continuum that everyone is on and that there is a correct place to exist on that continuum. I'm not willing to live in that made up political twilight zone, but then I don't need to always be right or have life fall into nice black and white categories.

[billisonboard]

May 13, 2012 9:42:15 GMT -5 Opti said:

May 12, 2012 11:18:00 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

former liberal?
former New Yorker?
former Jew?
or all three?

I can understand how pointing out he was a former liberal would be germane to a liberal/conservative discussion but what is the significance of pointing out he is/was from New York?

I have to admit this one puzzled me because I don't drink their koolaid. I have no idea why someone would think being from New York or being Jewish would automatically bolster their liberal credentials. When I think of Orthodox Jews my next thought isn't social liberal or anything like that.

It probably has nothing to do with liberals and everything to do with the made up belief that there exists a right to left political continuum that everyone is on and that there is a correct place to exist on that continuum. I'm not willing to live in that made up political twilight zone, but then I don't need to always be right or have life fall into nice black and white categories.

Optimist, have you read Carse's Finite and Infinite Games?

[Opti]

Bills, no I haven't. I'm struggling with Econned by Yves Smith right now mainly because its too depressing.

[billisonboard]

May 13, 2012 10:06:22 GMT -5 Opti said:

Bills, no I haven't. I'm struggling with Econned by Yves Smith right now mainly because its too depressing.

That one looks interesting.

[Shirina]

that liberals really do hate America, hate good, hate success, and he explains why.

These kinds of stupid, carte-blanch assertions do not pave the way to rational discourse. They simply put people into hyper-defensive mode. Never mind the numerous fallacious arguments and causality errors this "former liberal" engages in.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

first of all, discrimination is when you TREAT people as inferiors, not when you think they are wrong.

What the guy is saying is that liberals take anti-discrimination to such an extreme that it doesn't only mean discrimination against people that are different, but that they can't discriminate between literally ANYTHING, or it's wrong.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 13, 2012 14:22:26 GMT -5 Shirina said:

that liberals really do hate America, hate good, hate success, and he explains why.

These kinds of stupid, carte-blanch assertions do not pave the way to rational discourse. They simply put people into hyper-defensive mode. Never mind the numerous fallacious arguments and causality errors this "former liberal" engages in.

Well, since you didn't and will not listen, I'll help you out. This guy's wake up call was, like many New Yorkers, on 9/11/01

He said it was like one day you're out to breakfast with a good friend of yours and in the course of the meal he says he hates his wife.

You know he doesn't really hate his wife- they've been married 35 years, they have kids- a couple of girls, they act just like her, and there he is still together with her.

When all of the sudden you see a group of people attacking a woman outside and you realize, it's your good friend's wife, and you get up and say- hey, they're beating up your wife out there, we gotta go help her and he says to your astonishment, "Nah, don't bother she probably did something to deserve it".

And it dawns on you, "Holy shit, he really does hate his wife".

On 9/11 America was attacked, and he's saying to his friends, "America is under attack we gotta do something" and all his liberal friends said, "Nah, America deserves it" (or it's God damn America, it's America's chickens coming home to roost as Obama's pastor and spiritual guide of 22 years said).

And it dawned on him- liberals really DO hate America, and as a liberal himself, he could not for the life of him figure it out.

It made no sense to him that they thought of the least bigoted and racist country on Earth as the most bigoted and racist, they said the most tolerant country on Earth was the least tolerant. They least imperialistic nation when you contemplate our considerable military and economic might, is to liberals the most imperialistic, and so on.

It's a good talk- if you'd listen, you'd know.

[Tennesseer]

palmbeachpaul-you tanked, yet again, on this one.

[Opti]

PBP wrote:

On 9/11 America was attacked, and he's saying to his friends, "America is under attack we gotta do something" and all his liberal friends said, "Nah, America deserves it" (or it's God damn America, it's America's chickens coming home to roost as Obama's pastor and spiritual guide of 22 years said).

And it dawned on him- liberals really DO hate America, and as a liberal himself, he could not for the life of him figure it out.

So this is the heart of your "liberals" or some people hate America spiel? To you and him this example and the wife might be the same
but to me they are not.

Go head and count me as one of those who didn't believe bombing all terrorists to heck would cure the problem. It would IMO just feed the underlying issue why there were terrorists targeting the US in the first place. It was horrific to be sure, but a better argument would be looking at the response the Amish had when I think those girls were killed. They didn't go for revenge because they believed in peace. They felt they would in some sense no longer be Amish if they had acted in any other way.


Your analogy or his is flawed. The wife is dead, the attack witnessed from afar the actual perps unknown at that point. What is the tack you take to lower the odds it happens to someone else. Or in this case what is the tack you take to lower the odds the US is attacked again? Does fighting with your wife today really lower the odds of having a fight tomorrow or does it increase the odds of a fight tomorrow or in the future?

When someone gets so blinded by what they perceive as the right solution like apparently you and this former liberal, they fail to see the obvious - the solutions to the problem are different. I can love my country as it is noticing all its flaws and still love as much or more than the people who have the deep need to see it as better than all the other countries. All it proves is he doesn't understand love of a country if it is different than his. It makes some kind of sense though, Israel isn't much on compromise either which may be a reason they will be fighting forever.

[Mkitty is pro kitty]

Liberalism's central tenant seems to be that we not insist that we are "right" or that anyone else is "wrong".

and all his liberal friends said, "Nah, America deserves it"

In order to think "America deserves it," "liberal friends" think America must have done something wrong to deserve it. But liberals do "not insist" "that anyone else is 'wrong'."

Self contradiction means you lose.



Note: those are your terms, and you haven't proved liberals believe in anything you stated. I was using your statements for logical purposes, not an admission of any facts. Void where prohibited.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

May 12, 2012 12:17:06 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Liberalism's central tenant seems to be that we not insist that we are "right" or that anyone else is "wrong". That is discrimination. It hurts the feelings of those we consider to be wrong. This leads to low self esteem, and causes these people to act out. Instead, we should not insist that we are right, or anyone else is wrong, but we should instead seek to understand those we perceive to be wrong. If we would just 'reach out' then we could get to know them, see where they're coming from and live in harmony with them.

Instead of a melting pot then, we can have a "salad" or a "quilt". The problem with this of course is that once you abandon the assumption that some things are right, others are wrong, some things work, and some things fail, some things are true, others are false, some things are good, and some things are evil, then you abandon rational thought itself.

The fact you refuse to watch this video confirms its accuracy, and makes it absolutely mandatory viewing for you because it is in fact the point.

That liberalism's highest value is a utopian world free of all conflict, and the way to avoid all conflict is for us to abandon all rationality and to never admit that anything is right, or anything is wrong-- because if nobody believes anything is worth fighting for (or arguing for) we can end conflict and live in peace and harmony. As a result there is no higher aim in liberalism than to undermine everything anyone holds dear, holds sacred, believes strongly, is successful, or that works.

So, the speaker argues, everything about liberalism has to destroy and reject anything that calls itself God, or Truth, right, or wrong, and the result is that discrimination- even the 'good' kind is intolerable.

It's a really interesting talk. The fact that so few care to hear it, actually confirms the talk's central theme. Liberalism cannot abide truth, or rationality. To do so undermines peace and tranquility.

This is a great thread Paul. The only problem that I have with it, is a bit of the context. The word liberal comes from the word liberty. I would consider you a true liberal when it comes down to it. The founding fathers were liberal because they wanted to do what they wanted, but they also understood respect, to a point. That is what most people that call themselves liberals these days are missing. There is a reason that the statue of LIBERTY is an American Icon.


All of the bold I added in your post is the result of socialist propaganda in our society. It's not liberalism that's the problem it socialism.. The italic and bold part is the goals of communism/socialism.

The idea that there is no right or wrong and that America needs to be beat down comes through our freedom of press from our enemies. The cold war was mostly propaganda, yet most here REFUSE to accept that our enemies COULD use our freedom of press against us to spread propaganda. I'm not sure why especailly when you factor in all the garbage that is on the Internet

The Communist/socialists have been trying to destroy the desire to create and manage capital in our society through propaganda in our press, and a lot of it is anti-Semitic. Nice try assholes!

[uncle23]

I like that Aham.............karma for you...........

[Virgil Showlion]

I'm a bit at a loss. The video (at least the first ten minutes) has little, if anything, to do with religion. :-\

Summarizing the first ten minutes of the video:

The speaker's assertion is that modern liberalism (which he institutionalizes as [large L] 'Liberalism') is an attempt to eliminate conflict by marginalizing, denigrating, and denying the existence of "right", and elevating that which is diametrically opposed to it. Per his thesis, the ultimate goal is to realize a John Lennonesque 'utopia' wherein there exist no nations, no religions, and ultimately no willingness or ability for humanity to distinguish between what is good and what is evil. This, in theory, would result in an end to wars, conflict, and contention.

He posits that Liberals will act in whatever capacity is necessary to deny that a "right" answer exists. They despise the notion of "right" and "wrong", and will consistently attempt to undermine, ridicule, criticize, and silence any individual who believes in an absolute right, while simultaneously promoting ideas contrary to established moral norms in an attempt to disestablish them. He cites this as the reason why well-meaning, intelligent people so readily endorse policies that encourage teenage promiscuity, sexual disease, abortion, anti-Israeli sentiment, characterization of America as 'imperialist', moral relativism, and hatred of success.

In short, he believes that Liberals do not love what is wrong so much as they detest what is right.

[Opti]

Sigh. I am sad to see this thread resurrected. Its like many PBP threads in that he or someone's views he likes attempts to define people with different views. Now given he doesn't share their views he's going to be wrong about what they believe and why they believe it. The only question really is how wrong he will be.

Most people do believe in some absolute rights including thou shall not kill except in defense of your own life among other things. I admit I personally am not all that into absolutes because it is limiting and when viewed from an absolute standpoint you can't see several things might be true at the same time including the only one the absolutist deigns to notice. As a liberal and a friend to liberals I can't think of any that hate success. Its just our definition tends to be larger than PBP's and his preferred viewpoint purveyors. If I wanted to sow division I could argue that far right conservatives don't love what is right either. They just want it their way everyone else be damned.

[swamp]

Ever wonder why PBP starts such inane threads?

[Opti]

Aug 5, 2012 21:35:58 GMT -5 swamp said:

Ever wonder why PBP starts such inane threads?

Sadly no. My guess is when he's getting his daily dose of far right conservative thought he finds things he thinks we all need to know and then posts them. The titles I'm guessing come from his attempts to mimic his idol Rush.

[Jaguar]

Aug 5, 2012 21:48:35 GMT -5 Opti said:

Aug 5, 2012 21:35:58 GMT -5 swamp said:

Ever wonder why PBP starts such inane threads?

Sadly no. My guess is when he's getting his daily dose of far right conservative thought he finds things he thinks we all need to know and then posts them. The titles I'm guessing come from his attempts to mimic his idol Rush.

[chiver78]

Aug 5, 2012 21:34:13 GMT -5 Opti said:

Sigh. I am sad to see this thread resurrected.

me too.

[Jaguar]

Aug 5, 2012 21:59:43 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Aug 5, 2012 21:34:13 GMT -5 Opti said:

Sigh. I am sad to see this thread resurrected.

me too.

[Virgil Showlion]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that 'Liberals', as the speaker defines them, "hate success".

Most people who identify as liberal on the P&M board do vehemently oppose—to the extent that "detest" is an appropriate word—the notion that there can be an absolute right. It isn't simply that "x isn't always right", it's that "x isn't always right, regardless of x". Excepting murder and rape, which are 'wrong' per whatever philosophical voodoo one takes refuge in, very little seems to be sacred.

I agree with Paul that a main tenet—a hallmark—of modern liberalism is abhorrence for the idea that absolute right can exist. Whether this is the driver for why liberals espouse anti-conservative (and sometimes evil) doctrines, I don't know.

Many conservative doctrines have been borne out of an irrational desire to "not be liberal", and not all good/evil divides fall along liberal/conservative lines. Furthermore, I acknowledge that there are as many or more issues (healthcare, gun control, education, etc.) where there is, legitimately, no "right side" known a priori, although different views prioritize different values.

What say you, "liberals"?

[mmhmm]

I'll hazard an answer, Virgil. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a conservative. I don't fit in a box, I guess. I have convictions on several sides of the political arena. If the truth be known, I think most folks do. I believe most liberals (not all ... I don't work that way) recognize certain absolutes. The difference, I believe, is in quantity. Conservatives, in my experience, recognize more absolutes than liberals do, and are more inclined to define absolutes for others. The latter makes logical sense because the conservative is convinced of the absolute. The liberal, however, may not accept that particular absolute but may well hold others.

I also don't believe this to be the only difference between the two stances. It may not even be the most important difference.

[Opti]

I'm not sure what "evil" doctrines you are talking about but if I liked to use the word evil I would say some conservatives have some "evil" doctrines of their own. Many conservatives in their fear of certain things assert that killing people will solve whatever problem is at hand.
9/11. Go kill some people it will all be better. Why bother trying to figure out if there is some discontent or things that could be changed that might make fewer people want to go out in a blaze of terroristic glory? Meh. We can just keep killing people until we run out of people to kill and it will be all better.

[Virgil Showlion]

I believe most liberals (not all ... I don't work that way) recognize certain absolutes.

The liberal, however, may not accept that particular absolute but may well hold others.

Aside from the two I mentioned, perhaps give a few examples. Modern liberals typically sanction premarital sex, teenage sex, homosexuality, divorce, licentiousness, abortion, deficit financing, drug use, legalized prostitution, swearing, religious profanity, disrespect for absolute parental authority, gambling, affirmative action (i.e. racism of low expectations), and—as Billis has recently opened my eyes to—infanticide.

Do you consider any of the above absolutely wrong (that is, wrong for all people at all times, under all circumstances)?

Conservatives, in my experience, ... are more inclined to define absolutes for others.

That's the definition of an absolute. It works the same way for you, me, and everybody, absolutely.

9/11. Go kill some people it will all be better. Why bother trying to figure out if there is some discontent or things that could be changed that might make fewer people want to go out in a blaze of terroristic glory? Meh. We can just keep killing people until we run out of people to kill and it will be all better.

I don't disagree with you. The speaker's grievance was more with the characterization of America as a tyrannical imperialist power.

[mmhmm]

Do I find any of the things you posted absolutely wrong, Virgil? It depends, I suppose, on how one defines "wrong". You define "wrong" in a biblical sense, for the most part, I believe. "Wrong", to you, often equates with "evil". I don't see things that way, as I'm not a religious person. In my world, there are far more shades of grey than there might be in your world. As individuals, we see things differently.

I don't consider divorce wrong in all cases. I don't consider abortion wrong in all cases. I don't consider drug use wrong if the drug is prescribed for a medical condition that needs treatment, so it's not wrong in all cases. I don't consider any of the things you iterated to be wrong in all cases, except infanticide. The murder of a living being under any circumstances other than self/family defense, to me, is wrong. Having said this, it should be noted I am NOT a liberal. Some of my convictions are distinctly conservative. I don't vote a liberal ticket, and I never have. I make those decisions based on situational evaluations.

As you say, absolutes are absolutes. That's why conservatives tend to make decisions on how others should behave. My world, however, is not that black and white, and I don't wish it to be so. I recognize the need for people to have the right to make their own decisions as long as those decisions don't set them outside the law of the land. In fact, I believe that right to be unalienable, and it's with that belief that I live my life. It works for me, but it would not work for you. That's as it should be, and I respect your right to hold your own views.

[Deleted]

There is an old saying

"You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time."

There are some people on this planet that will forever hate us, for being us....and in my opinion, there is NOTHING we can do to change that

The idea that a utopian society could exist where everyone gets along with everyone else, is very unrealistic point of view

My wife thinks it is possible...she is wrong. Maybe in a thousand years, as the human race progresses there is that possibility....but today? NFW