More Fun with Liberal Logic

It comes under the title "More Fun with Conservative Logic" or "More Fun with Neo-Con Logic", Whatever the title, these clever lists of liberal logic are making the rounds on Facebook and are just begging for responses. Responses that I know the clever minds at Commentarama can provide with ripping success. You will notice as you peruse the list, that my wonderfully liberal FB "friends" who pride themselves in their intellect haven't even bothered to read their posts for mindless inaccuracies.[See #3]

But that aside, please feel to free to formulate a response to deflate their inaccuracies with wit and panache that I have come to expect from Commentarama-ians!

1). Clinton, who was banging Monica Lewinsky, had to be impeached according to the Constitution as written by Thomas Jefferson, who was banging Sally Hemings.

2). John Edwards, who had a love child with his mistress while his ailing wife lay dying, was pronounced unfit to hold elected office by Newt Gingrich,
who had a love child with his mistress while his ailing wife lay dying.

3). Willard Mitt Romney, who insists our southern border needs a wall and would have voted against The Dream Act chooses as his running mate Marco Rubio, who wrote the Dream Act and whose parents came to America illegally.

4). Romney says it wasn't worth going after bin Laden until he was dead, then it was.

5). "Al Gore should not have taken campaign donations from the Tobacco industry since his family raised tobacco, " said Bob Dole who took donations from the Tobacco industry after publicly stating there's no known scientific link between cigarette smoking and Lung Cancer.

6). Being gay or lesbian is a choice, but having a baby isn't.

7). Having more guns will produce less gun violence in the same way that building more highways produces less traffic jams. If every hormonal inner-city high-school student were armed with a gun, there would be far fewer school shootings.

8). Photo ID's that cost money to obtain ( for the certified birth certificate) in order to vote does not constitute a violation of the 24th Amendment whereas requiring a photo ID to purchase a handgun is the inevitable descent down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and the end of representative government in America.

9). It makes sense to outlaw abortion AND cancel welfare for unwed teenage Moms. This will produce less dependence on government.

10). It makes more sense to treat poor people in county hospitals and present them with bills they never can nor will pay than to include all Americans on a national health care insurance program.

11). Banks, oil companies, Wall St. etc. , are all capable of self-regulation in the same way that BP IS perfectly capable of filling out its own safety inspection reports.

12). Marketplace law always produces lower consumer prices, such as electric bills in California.

13). Rather than get poor returns on Social Security funds, it makes far more sense to privatize and invest those funds in the Stock Market - with companies such as Enron, J. P. Morgan, WorldCom, etc.

14). The more money rich people have the more money poor people have. This is not done through taxes - it's MAGIC!!

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God Loves Criminals, Satan Doesn’t (Quasi-Open Thread, Vent Away Folks)

According to a new study, people who believe in Heaven commit more crimes than people who don’t. But people who believe in Hell commit fewer crimes than nonbelievers. Interestingly, this proves conservatism right. Read on. . .

This study was done by two professors at the University of Oregon and the University of Kansas. They studied data collected by the World and European Values Surveys conducted between 1981 and 2007 from 67 countries. This included 143,197 respondents.

After standardizing the crime rates in each country, the study authors came to the conclusion that people with a professed belief in Heaven and Hell had different crime rates. Specifically, they found that those who believe in Hell committed fewer crimes than average people, but those who believe in “a loving God” committed more crimes than average people.

So what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that liberals misunderstand human nature. Liberals believe that human nature can be changed by education, i.e. encouraging people to be better. But if that were true, then this study would have turned out differently. Think about it. This study isolated true believers from the rest of the population. Those people, presumably, are most susceptible to changing their behavior based on encouragement/ education because they believe that God has told them the way, and they believe he is offering them a reward for acting appropriately. Yet, not only did they not prove to be more law abiding, they actually proved to be more likely to commit crimes. That is the exact opposite of what liberal beliefs would predict. And if God can’t make true believers change their minds, then what chance does the government have changing minds?

Now look at the other group. This was the group which feared punishment. Through their belief in Hell, they were presented with the idea that if they did not behave, they would be punished. This resulted in a decrease in crimes. This is what conservatives have long advocated -- that human nature cannot be changed, but it can be controlled by providing negative consequences for misbehavior.

Putting this together tells us that it is hopeless to try to change human nature, but that human nature can be controlled. However, the only incentive which will result in such control is fear of punishment -- offering a reward will actually have the opposite effect. This flies in the face of liberalism, which claims that punishment is not effective, that only rewards can change behavior, and that human nature can be changed but, contradictorily, people are powerless to control their impulses.

As for why offering a reward would have the opposite effect, I suspect that anyone offering a reward is seen as unlikely to punish you. Indeed, if God will forgive you, then you really don’t need to worry about changing, do you? It’s the same way with the government. When a legal system only wants to reform you, it sends out the message that there is no longer any need to fear punishment and you can live as you wish. Ditto with an over-indulgent parent spoiling a child or a permissive boss losing control of the company. When there is no fear of a negative consequence, people take advantage of that.

So what all of this tells us is that liberalism reads human nature wrong in all areas (soft on crime, consequence free handouts, the elimination of shame, permissive child rearing), and not only will liberal policies fail, but they will make things worse by sending the wrong message.

But then, you knew that already.

OT: We're on ObamaCare and Holder contempt watch today. We highly recommend that everyone get some Tea and Birthday cake (Happy Birthdays T-Rav and tryanmax) and wait for the good news! And if tea isn't your thing, then prepare a Commentarama-tini! Bev will provide the recipes.

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“Obama Will Lose” Omen No. 472

Back in September 2010 (LINK), I wrote an article predicting how the left would react to the pending failure of Obama. I said that when the left knows things have gone wrong and they’re going to lose an election, they whip out the sour grapes. Specifically, they start writing articles telling us that “it’s impossible for anyone to govern!” Well, we have achieve grapedom.

As I said before, liberals are big on defense mechanisms, and their favorite defense mechanism when their candidate fails is the old idea that “nobody could do it.” Indeed, every time one of their leaders fails at something, they rush to warn us that this had nothing to do with their beliefs, it was because the thing was simply impossible – often couched in terms of “this is impossible because democracy allows Republicans to obstruct us.”

And when their Presidents fail utterly, they really step it up and we are treated to a whole slew of articles lamenting the fact that America itself is ungovernable. Carter gave us the clearest example of this. When it became obvious that he would fail, liberals everywhere started writing articles about how America was too big to be governed by one man, and how the ancient presidency just wasn’t up to the task of running a modern country. It really infuriated them when Reagan proved the doomsayers wrong.

With Obama following the Carter plan to the letter (hyperinflation, gas price problems, no jobs, soaring debt, falling currency, war in Afghanistan, crashing poll numbers), it was only a matter of time before the media decided that the problem wasn’t Obama, it was that America itself is ungovernable. Enter the Washington Post and an article obnoxiously titled:

“Can any president succeed in today’s political world?”

Of course they can, they just can’t succeed when they are doing stupid things. And Obama, like Carter, does stupid things. Obama had the House and a supermajority in the Senate. He could have done anything if he had the political leadership skills to simply outline what he wanted. But he didn’t. The failure was his own with an assist from the genuinely stupid ideas of his party. It wasn’t the result of some inherent defect in our system. But that won’t sooth the Washington Post. Here’s what they blame his failure on:

Consider this: We are in the midst of more than a decade-long streak of pessimism about the state of the country, partisanship is at all-time highs and the media have splintered — Twitter, blogs, Facebook and so on and so forth — in a thousand directions all at once.

Ok, stop right there. This the same paper which said to run the Republicans over when the Democrats had the majority. Apparently, partisanship wasn’t a problem for them then. Pessimism isn’t a problem either because policies work on their merits, not on the hopes of the people who implement them. As for the media “splintering” why would that matter unless the Post thinks the only way to achieve anything is to force groupthink on the public?

Now watch them flip this around:

Layer over the constant stream of news with the fact that Twitter, blogs and cable television turn every slip of the tongue, misstatements or gaffe into a mountain — “the private sector is doing fine” being a prime, recent example — and it’s clear that the idea that the president can drive the hourly, daily or weekly message of his choosing feels outdated. The bully pulpit may still exist, but it’s far less bully than it once was.

That’s especially true not only because the fracturing of the media makes it hard to push a clear message but also because roughly half of the American public doesn’t want to hear the message (whatever it is) because it is of the other party.

Wrong. Notice that the first problem is the inability to reach the public because there is no single all-powerful (liberal) media telling people what to think, somehow that makes it impossible to govern. But then they flip that right around and whine that all these blogs and twits brainwash the public. How can the public be lost in a splintered media wilderness on the one hand, but simultaneously that splintered media can exploit any story and brainwash the public on the other? Then we flip it over one more time and finish with no one being able to get a message out because the media is splintered again. Consistency, thy name ain’t liberal.

The problem here is that liberalism fails, but liberals don’t want to believe it. So instead, they scratch their heads trying to figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. And the only answer they can come up with, before they start talking about betrayal, is that the whole system stinks. Good grief: “I can’t bowl a 300 game, so bowling must be flawed.” Yeah, that makes sense.

Look for more of these articles for a while and enjoy them while they last because they will soon give way to the bloodbath phase as our liberal friends start to tear each other apart. In fact, we’re already seeing the preliminaries on this as the West Virginia delegation and Hillary Clinton are saying they won’t go to the Democratic Convention. It’s going to get ugly(er), so grab your popcorn and enjoy the show!

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Political Philosophy

Let’s do a grab-bag of news issues and a philosophical question. . . oooohm. What is the sound of no hands clapping for Obama? Would it sound like panic? Are they really rights if nobody uses them? Can something that never died come back to life? What is gray? All this and not a word more. . .

1. It’s (Still) Alive!!: Dick Lugar went down in flames last night in the Indiana Republican Primary. For 36 years, this moderate Republican has been a pillar of the Republican Party in Washington and in Indiana. Last night, Tea Party upstart Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock took him down. That has the MSM wondering if the Tea Party has come back to life, especially with Tea Party-backed Senate candidates Jeff Flake (AZ), Josh Mandel (Ohio), and Ted Cruz (TX) likely to join him. But how can something which never died come back to life?

2. Waive It Goodbye: Zimmerman waived his speedy trial rights yesterday in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Some have asked if this is normal. The answer is yes, almost everyone waives their speedy trial rights because nobody wants to rush into a trial because it’s too risky. So are they really rights if no one gets to use them?

3. The Sound of Panic: I mentioned the other day that Obama is having a hard time. Even the MSM is taking note. Jeff Greenfield just wrote an interesting column in which he laments “Obama’s bad week.” He notes, with a good deal of panic, that the empty stadium business has been a disaster for Obama because it has dominated the news. And that’s true. Even Politico just wrote an article whining about how unfair it was for everyone to keep harping on it. Greenfield also adds that the bigger worry should be that this is proof that college kids have abandoned Obama. He then pointed out that Saturday Night Live pulling a skit about Obama politicizing the bin Laden killing was proof that Obama did politicize the killing and that the left is really worried about it. He also mentioned that Obama’s political ads have been underwhelming.

James Carville likewise is panicking. He yelled at his stupid Democratic-voter friends to “wake the f**k up!” Heck, we’ve been telling them that for years, but for a different reason. His reason is that Obama is in danger of losing and yet the Democrats are showing no signs of enthusiasm or urgency. That’ll happen when your administration is a walking advertisement for “FAIL by Obama.”

Obama also is imploding all over the place on the gay marriage thing. Not only did North Carolina toss a lot of cold water on the dream that gay marriage would spread beyond the liberal enclaves (they banned gay marriage AND civil unions 69% to 31% last night), but Obama is being called a hypocrite on the issue by the left. Indeed, after Biden said this weekend that he’s totally thrilled with gay marriage and would have one himself if he could find the right woman, Obama continued to try to be for it and against it at the same time. This has the MSM fuming:

● CNN’s Jessica Yellin asked if Obama was trying to “have it both ways before an election” and whether he should “stop dancing around the issue.”

● ABC’s Jake Tapper: “It seems cynical to hide this prior to the election” and then attack Obama’s people for hiding behind talking points.

● NBC’s Chuck Todd: “So help me out here. He opposes bans on gay marriage, but he doesn’t yet support gay marriage?”

Sounds like they want to out Mr. Obama, doesn’t it? So what is the sound of sycophancy fading?

4. Let’s Get Philosophical: Finally, I want to bring up something we discussed yesterday in the Politics of Trek comments. For as far back as I can remember, conservatives have been accused by liberals of “seeing everything in black and white” and being unable to see shades of gray. But in my experience, the opposite is actually true. Conservatives tend to be very good at grasping how much gray there is in the world and accepting it as gray. It’s liberals who are incapable of accepting gray. Indeed, they seem to have a nearly obsessive need to define everything as black or white and to demand that all the blacks be banned or prohibited while everyone be forced to partake in all the whites, i.e. no grays will be tolerated.

The reason liberals attack conservatives as being incapable of seeing “shades of gray” is because liberals lack consistency and conservatives don’t. In other words, liberals define everything as black or white, but these extreme positions can change at a moment’s notice. Thus, liberals are simultaneously extremists, because everything must be a black or white, and unprincipled, because black and white can change at any time. However, they wrongly see their ability to flop around as a positive, which they define as being able to see shades of gray, i.e. having nuanced minds, even though they really aren’t seeing any gray at all -- just lots of blacks and whites flopping around. It would be like loving or hating everyone on the planet but then claiming you are actually indifferent about people because you can move people from the love to the hate column and vice versa.

And since conservatives rarely tend to change their minds about what they consider black and white, liberals wrongly accuse conservatives of not being able to see gray even though it isn’t really gray the liberals are talking about. . . it’s really “lack” of inconsistency which liberals are calling “incapable of seeing gray.”

Thoughts?

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Liberals Are Not Smartier Than Conservatives (redux)

Last week, we offered some genuine proof that liberals are dumber that conservatives. Not only did we point out the kinds of errors they embrace in their thought processes, but we also pointed out how conservatives smoke them in testing. Now some liberal professor claims conservatism is the result of low brain power. Wrong.

The study (LINK) was done by a University of Arkansas psychologist and claims to have found that conservatism is the result of “low-effort thinking.” Essentially, the study claims that when the brain is firing on all cylinders, i.e. when it is engaged in “effortful, deliberate responding,” the mind tends toward liberalism. But when those deep thoughts are disrupted for various reasons (e.g. alcohol or time pressure), people become evil, stupid conservatives. How convenient for liberals who want to kid themselves about their own stupidity.

Let’s debunk this.

First, look at the labels this dipsh*t is using. Labeling conservatism as “low-effort” thinking is strong evidence of political bias. How do we know? Because what this study labels as “low-effort” thinking is actually defined by the study as the brain processes becoming “quick and efficient.” Thus, they have chosen a negative label (one implying limited brain power) to describe something which is actually a positive process (efficient use of brain power). Therefore, a more accurate description of the results of this study would instead be: “efficient thinking processes result in conservatism.” But that won’t comfort liberals.

Secondly, the study defines “conservative” wrongly. The study claims that conservatism “may be identified by several components,” which include: “an emphasis on personal responsibility, acceptance of hierarchy, and a preference for the status quo.” Wrong. Conservatism absolutely believes in individual responsibility. But individualism and acceptance of hierarchy are contradictory beliefs. And it is liberalism, not conservatism, which is marked with subservience to hierarchy. Liberals believe in leader worship, strong government, supremacy of experts and the superiority of certain classes of people. And if you want real world proof of this, look no further than any liberal country (e.g. Europe, Japan, South America) and you will find a heavy emphasis on strong government and social class, i.e. hierarchies, with a strong deference given to superiors telling inferiors how to live their lives. Only in America, the most conservative country on earth, is class minimized.

Moreover, if it were true that conservatives were beholden to hierarchies (and the status quo) then how can one explain that conservatives go against the MSM? America’s media and political class are center-left. If conservatives followed the herd, they too would be center-left. Yet, conservatives fight those groups and actively disbelieve what these authorities tell them -- again, it is liberals who do what they are told. Thus, again, we see that the study has tried to define conservatism as consisting of the worst traits of liberalism.

Third, the study is obviously wrong on its face because it is trying to explain ideology as a matter of brain function. Yet, ideology must be cultural in nature. How do we know this? Because different cultures produce different ideological results. The vast majority of the populations in Europe and Japan are far left by American standards and the vast majority of the populations in America and China are far right by European standards. This cannot be explained by brain function, it can only be culture. In other words, if ideology were the result of brain function, then all countries would exhibit similar ideological characteristics. Yet, they do not. That means brain function is not a predictor of ideology. And this study’s attempt to find such a link is a fool’s errand.

Fourth, the study looked only at political centrists, i.e. moderates. So the obvious problem here is whether moderates can be used as a proxy for conservatives? In fact, the authors admit that they do not know if conservatives get more conservative or if liberals get more conservatives (or more liberal) if tested in the same manner. Basically, the only thing they can say for certain is that when you put moderates under pressure, they give more conservative responses. This could mean they become more conservative under pressure. Or it could mean that moderates are more likely to fake liberal views until they are put under pressure, at which point their “real” beliefs appear. Or it could mean moderates are inherently conservative thinkers who delude themselves until it comes time to make a decision. Or it could be that conservatism is the human default for problem solving. Or it could just be that moderates realize that conservative ideas will give them the best result.

All we know for sure is that the study found this:

When moderates are put under pressure, so that a quick and efficient response is needed, they will resort to “conservative” thinking.

And the reasons for that are unknown. What cannot be concluded from this study, however, is that “low-effort thinking results in conservatism.”

Once again, what we see here is how far liberals will go to convince themselves they aren’t idiots. This study took the worst parts of liberal thinking and re-labeled them as conservative, conducted a useless test on moderates, and drew untenably broad conclusions while simultaneously ignoring overwhelming contradictory real world evidence all in the hopes of telling liberals that conservatives are stupid. Pathetic.

This is all starting to explain a lot, isn’t it? Who are your top five stupid liberals and what are their “shining moments” of stupidity?

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Conservatives ARE Smarter Than Liberals

Liberals love to think they’re smarter than conservatives, but they aren’t. Conservatives are smarter than liberals, and we know this to be true for a variety of reasons. Now, Pew has give us more proof to add to the pile. But before we talk about Pew, let’s consider the proof we already have that conservatives are indeed smarter than liberals.

Here are six reasons why we know liberals are simply not very smart:

1. They support liberalism. No, I’m not being facetious. Liberalism has been an unmitigated disaster everywhere it’s been tried. It has bankrupted countries, destroyed inner city families, and made a mockery of education. Indeed, any area of our culture or economy which is dominated by liberals is a mess. And the more liberal a country is, the more likely it is to be broke with massive unemployment and little idea how to turn itself around. Not to mention that liberalism runs contrary to human nature, and its cousin socialism has slaughtered hundreds of millions of people. Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same behaviors and expecting different results, yet that is exactly what liberals are doing. Hence, anyone who still believes liberalism can work is either stupid or insane.

2. They reject reality. Anyone who ignores facts they don’t like and insists on believing things that are provably false just isn’t very smart. Yet, that describes liberalism to a T. They will believe things which have been debunked and ignore all evidence that disproves their beliefs. And, not only do they ignore evidence they don’t like, they attack the messenger and try to force people to accept their fantasy version of reality over genuine reality through groupthink and political correctness.

3. They accept contradictions. Anyone who can accept a logical contradiction is an idiot because it shows they have no ability to reason and they are willing to believe that which cannot be true just to maintain their worldview. And liberalism is crawling with logical contradictions. My recent favorite is Keynesian thought, which says that spending money helps the economy because it adds to the economy but simultaneously claims that taxes don’t hurt an economy even though taxes pull money from the economy.

4. They lack a principled framework through which to see the world. The liberal decision-making process is emotive and reactionary, it lacks consistency and any sort of framework upon which to base decisions. It is essentially “reasoning through gut feeling.” Inconsistency and lack of problem-solving methodology are evidence of weak, useless minds.

5. They are incapable of seeing the long term. All decisions have short-term and long-term consequences, yet liberals simply cannot grasp the concept of long-term effects. Only being able to grasp half an answer is evidence of stupidity.

6. They “admit” it. Liberalism’s most obnoxious trait is that liberals project their own worst traits onto others. Thus, while they act like racists/sexists/homophobes/ageists/etc-ists, they deny being any of these things and instead project these flaws onto others. They whine about conservatives speaking in code because they themselves speak in code. They accuse people of being liars when they are the liars, they accuse others of being “haters” when they have the hate, and they accuse others of being “fascists” when they are the fascists. So what do we make of liberals accusing conservatives of being closed-minded (a distinctly liberal, but not conservative, trait) and stupid? Hmm. Sounds like an admission to me.

And now we have more from Pew. Every year, Pew asks people a variety of questions to gage the public’s knowledge of various topics. If liberals are indeed smarter as they claim, they should dominate these tests, but they don’t. To the contrary, conservative blow them out.

Here are the results from the 2010 quiz:

● Men did better than women (50% to 35% correct) and in fact beat women on every question.
● College grads did much better than high school grads (61% to 33%).
● Age-wise, those in the 30+ brackets did much better than the 18-20 bracket (50% to 32%).
● And Republicans (50%) and Independents (47%) did better than Democrats (40%).

In fact, it was even worse than it appears for the Democrats. On the 2010 Pew survey, Republicans outperformed the Democrats on 10 of 12 questions, with one tie and the Democrats winning the other question. On this year’s survey it was even worse. This year, Pew asked 19 questions and Republicans outperformed the Democrats on ALL 19 questions. Imagine that.

So these condescendingly smug liberals who see themselves as vastly more knowledgeable than Republicans. . . after all, they watch Stephen Colbert while you hillbillies are watching NASCAR. . . got smoked on 19 out 19 questions. And this continues a trend of Republicans smoking Democrats.

Sadly, the Democrats are probably too stupid to understand what this means, but feel free to try to explain it to them the next time they claim they are smarter than conservatives. I suggest using puppets to make it easier for them to understand.

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Fighting Fire With Fire

ScottDS and I had an interesting discussion yesterday, related to the Andrew Breitbart’s Bigs. Later in the day, Rufus at Threedonia, posted some similar thoughts. So this is probably worth discussing. Right now, the Bigs are kind of annoying. . . BUT here’s why they are actually doing a good thing.

The reason the Bigs are annoying is because they are jumping on minutia and mercilessly pounding it into the ground. Game Change had some inaccuracies, but is it worth 500 articles calling Tom Hanks everything from a truth rapist to the last American communist? Tom Hanks also appears in a video with someone in blackface. Is that worth pounding away? Bill Maher says much worse things than Rush ever said, but do we need to hear about it 10,000 times? Etc. All of this seems petty and it’s somewhat hypocritical in the sense that the Bigs are judging these people under politically correct standards which conservatives don’t accept. And frankly, I don’t personally like it. I don’t find this interesting and I would rather they were more constructive.

So it’s bad, right? Well. . . no.

Here’s the thing. For at least two decades now, the left has worked to isolate conservatives from the culture and make them pariahs. Every time a conservative spoke their mind, the left attacked them using some faked-sleight invented by the left. They would feign offense at some non-offensive word or act and then smear the conservative as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. It didn’t matter that leftists routinely said the same things, they still attacked. In fact, they would hound these conservatives until the conservatives either left the public sphere or surrendered to the mercy of their persecutors. In this way, they made it impossible for conservatives to have their voices heard because every time a conservative got noticed, they were destroyed personally and professionally. The idea literally was to make sure conservatives were afraid to speak.

And how did conservatives respond? Most cringed and did nothing. And when they saw leftists saying or doing the exact same things the left had attacked conservatives for doing, they remained silent. Why? Because they decided to take the high road. They reasoned that if it wasn’t fair to attack conservatives because of X, then it wouldn’t be fair to attack liberals for X either, so they refused to attack. This was stupid.

For twenty-plus years now, conservatives have let the left destroy conservative after conservative with hypocritical attacks without a peep of challenge except to whine about the hypocrisy. Public life became intolerable for conservatives (look at what they did to Palin for example), while liberals got to skate through saying and doing anything they wanted, secure in the knowledge that conservatives were unwilling to attack them.

No more. The Bigs have declared war. They have taken the same pathetic, petty attacks the left has used to smear conservatives for years and they are now applying those same attacks to leftists. They are fighting fire with fire, because that's the only way to stop what the left is doing. When someone has a weapon they can use with impunity, they will. But when they suddenly realize that others will use it against them, they will stop. Think of it as the cultural version of Mutually Assured Destruction: if you want to try to destroy a conservative as racist/sexist for using a particular word, then we will destroy every liberal who uses that word. This may not make for a pleasant world in the short term, but it is the only way to put an end to these attacks.

Indeed, fighting fire with fire is the only technique which works against the left because they win through incremental progress. In other words, they can win by getting a little bit at a time each time they come to power unless conservatives roll back their gains. For example, for decades, the left concentrated power in the executive branch and the courts. They used that power to force leftist ideas onto businesses, schools, state governments, charities, churches and individuals. When conservatives came to power, they would stupidly declare that they would take the high ground and not use the powers created by the left. The left laughed. And once the conservatives lost power again, the left picked right up where they were before and kept right on pushing -- secure in the knowledge that conservatives lacked the will to use these instruments of power against them.

All of that changed under Bush, particularly in education where Bush used the levers of power liberals created to push liberalism onto schools as a means to impose conservatism instead. Suddenly, the left started howling about state’s rights and attacks on personal freedom and they did their best to strip away the powers they had created. Ditto in the courts, where the left now squeals about legal principles like stare decisis, binding precedent and judicial restraint. . . things they ignored for fifty years while the courts were pushing the country to the left.

It’s the same thing here. Taking the high ground equals surrendering. Conservatives must learn to make the left pay for creating these weapons. This means using the government to bring lawsuits against liberal businesses that violate the laws, sending the IRS after liberal churches, unions and charities which engage in politics, going after race hustler groups and black racist organizations under the civil rights laws, targeting Obama-crony companies like GE with the environmental laws they demanded. . . and making life hell for liberal celebrities who step into the traps liberals have set for conservatives.

That’s what the Bigs are doing. And while I don’t personally enjoy it, I absolutely recognize the value of what they are doing. They are firing back the same nuclear weapons the left has been lobbing at us, and they’ve been rather successful at it. And when the left starts to realize that they are living under an unfair microscope of their own making, they will surrender. . . just as they have every other time conservatives have fought back.

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Liberals Are Intolerant, Who Knew?

Is it just me or do liberals strike you as intolerant? They don’t engage with conservatives, they attack. Say something they don’t like and they will call you a liar, call you names, try to shout you down, or even try to get you fired. They won’t compete with talk radio, they demand prosecutions and FCC shutdowns. Bloggers? Forget about it, they want those shut down too. They want conservative political ads banned, actors blacklisted, companies boycotted, and churches hounded by the IRS. Not a very tolerant bunch. Here’s more proof.

Pew just did a fascinating poll about tolerance and the internet. And what they found will not shock you: liberals are intolerant of opposing views. Shocker, right?

According to Pew, 52% of liberals have discovered by going onto social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) that their friends have different beliefs than they thought. That’s right, more than half of all liberals were blind to the views of their friends. How did conservatives do? Only 34% of conservatives reported the same thing. And before you say those are roughly comparable, they aren’t. This means liberals are 150% more likely than conservatives to not grasp that their friends don’t share their views.

What would cause this? It’s a combination of two things. First, as anyone who has ever met a liberal knows, they live in bubbles. They believe that everyone thinks like they do, a view which gets confirmed by the MSM and Hollywood. Thus, they are essentially walking egoists without the power to empathize with anyone because they lack the ability to grasp that others are not like them. Hence it never occurs to them that their friends might disagree and they are incapable of seeing the signs that their blathering on about liberalism isn’t going over so well.

Secondly, they are intolerant. We know this because there is clearly something about these liberals which has stopped their friends from being honest with the liberals despite the fact they are apparently willing to otherwise share their views with the world on social networking sites. We also know this from something else Pew found. According to Pew, 28% of liberals have blocked people or unfriended people because they disagreed with something the user said. That's three in ten! Extrapolating that to the liberal population of the US means 34.7 million liberals have tried to silence people they know because they disagree with them. That’s the equivalent of TWICE the entire populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Boston combined.

But wait, aren’t conservatives just as bad? Hardly. Only 16% of conservatives reported doing the same. That means liberals are 175% more likely to try to shut people out because of their views. Imagine that.

Of course, none of this should surprise anyone. We’ve all seen the examples in our own lives where liberals assume that everyone in the room must be liberal because they simply can’t conceive of anyone thinking differently. And we’ve seen how shocked, how angry, and how vile they get when they hear that people have different views. And we’ve seen how they ignore all evidence which conflicts with their beliefs and how they dismissing any source which shakes up their world. We’ve seen it where they are incapable of good faith disagreement. We’ve seen it where they think nothing of using government force to impose their beliefs on others. We’ve seen it where they try to make words and thoughts into crimes and where they apply double standards based on their guess about your motives rather than looking objectively at your actions.

These numbers confirm that liberals are indeed what they appear to be: an intolerant group who are so self-centered they don’t understand that their friends don’t share their views and who are so intolerant that their friends are afraid to tell them the truth.

Liberalism is a sad way to live.

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“Post-Birth Abortion”. . . Seriously

Let’s talk about a shocker from the British Medical Journal. In a recent BMJ edition, Oxford University’s Francesca Minerva, a medical ethicist, and Alberto Giubilini, a bioethicist from the U. of Milan, argue in favor of “post-birth abortion.” Specifically, they advocate a right to kill newborn babies if they are disabled, unwanted, or if they would be too expensive for the family. Yes, you read that right.

Here is their argument:

1. Like an unborn child, a newborn has yet “to develop hopes, goals and dreams.” Thus, while the newborn is human, it is not yet “a person – someone with a moral right to life.”

2. In the case of disabled children. . . while the child may be happy, it will not reach the full potential of a normal child: “To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole. . . On these grounds, the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion.” In other words, if you aren’t perfect, your don’t have a right to live.

3. Parents, siblings and society have goals that could be affected by the arrival of the child, and those goals should take precedence over the child’s rights. Therefore, “post-birth abortion” is justified if the mother “no longer has the time, money or energy to care for” the child.

Wow, chilling.

The abortion movement has always hidden behind the idea that fetuses aren’t “alive.” Ergo, aborting a fetus is not like killing a child and abortion is no big deal. This argument has worked to the extent we have been unable to define when life begins. That’s why many people are indifferent to early-term abortions, but oppose late-term abortions because the more the fetus looks like a human the more likely it is to be alive. That’s also why partial-birth abortion was such a disaster for feminists because no one could help but grasp that this was a child being killed.

But now Minerva and Giubilini lay bare the real thinking behind the pro-abortion position. They don’t care if the child is alive or not. All that matters to them is the economic progress of the mother.

Moreover, the mental gymnastics Minerva goes through are stunning. First, she redefines life to have value only if a person has “hopes, goals and dreams.” But that’s not really her test because babies have hopes, goals and dreams, as does my dog. What she’s really saying is life only has value when people have “hopes, goals and dreams” which she considers worthwhile. That is a justification for mass murder of undesirables.

And while she limits this to newborns to make her theory seems less dangerous to readers, the fact is her logic does not account for an age limit. Indeed, what difference does it make using her test if someone is 6 weeks, 6 years, or 6 decades old? If they don’t have the right “dreams”/goals to be considered human, then logically there is no reason they couldn’t be exterminated using her same justification. The sick, the infirm, those on welfare or without useful skills, or even old people who are beyond trying to achieve their goals could all be exterminated using her logic.

She also really twists herself to dismiss adoption as an alternative. Indeed, if the mother doesn’t want the child, why not just give it up for adoption? Well, Minerva says we can’t do that because adoption could cause undue psychological distress to the mother. Think about that. There is no psychological distress with killing your child, but there would be psychological distress in letting someone else have it. How sick is that?!

What she’s really worried about is that unless the doctor exterminates the child, the mother might want to keep it, and that would expose the atrocity of her theory once the mothers realized that these newborn things actually turn into people that matter.

Not surprisingly, our Hitlerian genius Minerva was shocked at the negative reaction, which included death threats. Boo hoo. She claims that her argument has been “taken out of its academic and theoretical context” and that she’s not advocating this policy. But the fact is, she is advocating this by issuing a paper in which she claims this is an ethically/ philosophically correct position. Whether she likes the backlash or not, she has tried to justify infanticide and she even provided the euphemism: “post-birth abortion” (as if you could abort something that has already happened).

Remember this the next time some abortion advocate tells you they only support abortion because “it’s not alive.”

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Are We Too Stupid For Democracy?

Professor David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, thinks humans are too stupid to make democracy work. Well, yeah. . . duh. But that doesn’t mean democracy is a bad idea. Observe.

Dunning claims democracy can't work because “incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people.” Translation: when a person does not know how to do something (i.e. they are incompetent), they are also incapable of determining whether other people are competent or not. In other words, if you don’t know how to fix a car then you are also incapable of distinguishing between good mechanics and mechanics who don’t know what they are doing. Since politics requires problem solving in many fields in which few people are competent, the public is incapable of picking quality leaders. Ergo, we end up with “mediocre leaders and policies.”

Let’s blow this puppy away. . .

For starters, Dunning is no expert on logic. Indeed, he makes two fatal mistakes right out of the gate. First, his entire theory is a tautology (circular reasoning): he assumes people are incompetent at picking leaders and thus concludes they pick incompetently. That’s circular and it’s logical nonsense.

Moreover, he provides no support for his assertion that we pick incompetent leaders except his further assertion that we get mediocre leaders -- another tautology. Nor does he quantify how we should conclude that our leaders are mediocre. . . nor does he show that the alternatives offered were better. . . nor does he explain some of the primo talent of the past 30 years like Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, Paul Ryan, Helmut Kohl, Tony Blair, etc.

Secondly, he assumes that people must be incompetent at picking a leader because they can’t possibly know everything there is to know about tax policy and economics and social issues and environmental law, etc. In other words, since no person can be an expert in everything, we must be incompetent at picking leaders to handle everything. But here’s the flaw in that. We aren’t picking leaders who handle everything. Instead, we are picking leaders who will find the right people to handle the various issues. Hence, the only competence we need in picking leaders is competence in picking someone whose judgment we trust to find the right experts.

So Dunning’s premise and argument is simply wrong.

But I’m going to run with it anyway because there’s a bigger point here. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that his assumptions are right. Should we then get rid of democracy? Well no, because the alternatives are worse.

If people are by definition unable to pick someone to lead in an area about which they know nothing, then how would socialism work better than democracy? Guys like Dunning pretend that “panels of experts” would make decisions, but how do we determine who is an expert? The only difference between democracy and socialism in that regard is that a smaller pool of people (not a smarter pool of people) pick the leader. So even if his argument is true, it does not argue against democracy. . . it argues against trusting the government.

Moreover, my experience with expert panels is very much what Ayn Rand predicted. You end up with a committee of blowhards with little actual knowledge or ability, who are appointed because they speak the nomenclature and they have insider contacts. These people then spend their time trying to stop the genuine experts from plying their craft because the genuine experts represent a threat to the panel: in effect, the experts become a cabal that seeks to keep out anyone with the skill to expose the panel’s defects.

Thus, whereas democracy MAY result in the wrong leaders being picked, any system other than democracy will INVARIABLY result in the wrong leaders being picked. So it’s 50/50 under democracy or guaranteed 0% under the other systems. That’s where you get all-stars like Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Mubarak, the Ayatollah, Mugabe, Castro, Amin, Chavez, etc.

Further, politics suffers from an adverse selection problem. Adverse selection means the worst people will gravitate toward the positions where they can do the most harm. That’s why the unhealthy want insurance, but the healthy don’t. That’s why child molesters gravitate toward being priests or Scout Leaders. And that’s why the very people who should never be trusted with power go into politics -- because they crave power, and they end up satisfying their own desires to dominate rather than making decisions for the greater good.

Making this worse is the ego/arrogance aspect of this. In a democracy, politicians know their power is on loan. In other systems, where people are appointed because of connections or because they believe they are “experts,” the power is considered a divine right as a result of being superior to the public in some way, i.e. “I’m better than you because I’m an expert.” When you combine the adverse selection problem with a sense of divine right, you will end up with megalomania.

Finally, under democracy, politicians remain answerable to voters who can toss them out if they become abusive. No such check exists under the other systems.

So we may be too stupid for democracy, but we’re certainly too stupid for anything else.

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Delusional Liberal Myths

The Weekly Standard did an article this weekend which listed ten myths liberals tell themselves. Some of these were right, but most really weren’t. So what are the real myths liberals tell themselves? In other words, what false ideas do liberals genuinely believe about themselves, even though those beliefs are nonsensical, contradictory, and/or contrary to all the evidence?

Myth No. 1: Liberals Are The Mainstream

Even though polls show 60% of Americans embrace conservative beliefs, twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative than liberal (40% to 20%), and even though liberal politicians shy away from the liberal label, liberals still believe they are the mainstream in America.

Liberals believe this because they live in a bubble. They cluster in predominantly liberal cities and they choose only liberal friends. Hollywood inserts liberal messages in their films, Madison Avenue does the same with advertising, liberal publishers do the same with books, and even the nightly news is entirely liberal, while pretending to be unbiased. Thus, to a liberal, the whole world seems liberal because that’s all they see and hear.

An interesting bit of proof of how much this can distort your view comes from a Gallup poll which asked what percentage of the American population is black. Blacks, who cluster together and who hear their leaders complain about under-representation despite being overrepresented in the culture, answered that blacks are 30% of the population. . . three times the actual number.

Myth No. 2: Everyone Genuinely Thinks Like Liberals Do

An offshoot of Myth Number 1 combined with an incredible lack of self-awareness, liberals believe that everyone genuinely thinks like they do. Indeed, when someone dares to express a different view, they automatically assume that person is motivated by bias or has been bought or misled. This issue also explains why liberals believe that all criminals are victims: because they personally can't conceive of wanting to be a criminal. Thus, since they know that everyone else thinks like they do, it stands to reason (to them) that anyone who commits a crime does so against their own will, e.g. they are forced by circumstances beyond their control.

Myth No. 3: Liberals Are Knowledgeable

Liberals believe they are better educated and better informed than the public at large. And they see their enemies as stupid, anti-science, anti-knowledge hillbillies. This is of course wrong. Not only has it been shown over and over that liberals are very poorly informed, but their incredible desire to block “inconvenient truths” through political correctness and simply denying reality, and their refusal to consider knowledge that runs counter to their beliefs (see Myth No. 1 above) keep liberals happily ignorant. So why do they think they are knowledgeable? Consider the old adage that the most intelligent person is the one who knows what they don’t know, and those who are most sure are those who know the least. That describes liberals. They are willfully ignorant of what they don’t know, and that blinds them to the truth and makes their own beliefs seem that much more correct.

Myth No. 4: Liberalism Has Never Failed

Liberal policies have failed whenever they’ve been put into practice. Indeed, the evidence is indisputable that liberal policies are highly destructive. Yet, liberals insist liberalism has never failed. Why do they say this? Because liberals disavow their failures. The most common defense mechanism involves believing that liberal policies weren’t actually tried. This delusion takes two forms: (1) either the liberals in charge turned out not to be "genuine" liberals and thus perverted the policies (e.g. the Soviets or Nazis) or they failed to go far enough (e.g. Obama or the Great Society), or (2) their policies were undermined by the enemies of liberalism, e.g. corporations, Republicans, the rich, white people, religious people, capitalists, the bourgeois middle class, etc. That's how despite 70 years of nearly-uninterrupted liberalism, liberals will tell you with a straight face that liberalism has never really been given a chance anywhere. And in rare instances, where its inescapable that liberalism was tried (e.g. FDR), liberals create elaborate lies to explain how it actually worked despite the historical evidence to the contrary.

Myth No. 5: Liberals Are Independent Thinkers

Liberals are the classic example of “group think.” They believe what they are told, no matter how contradictory. And their beliefs can be changed literally overnight if their leaders tell them so. Yet, liberals consider themselves independent thinkers. This is of course ridiculous. First, consider the fact that liberals actively dismiss all evidence that doesn’t fit their beliefs. Secondly, consider that liberals are poorly informed people who only get their news from liberal propaganda sources. Third, consider that liberals have no problem ignoring reality when they are told it is no longer politically correct to believe reality. None of that is consistent with independent thinking.

Myth No. 6: Liberals Represent The Little Guy

Liberals love to believe they represent the little guy. Yet, their representatives do the bidding of Big Business. Their minimum wage kills the very jobs the little guy needs. Their unions crush small businesses and keep out outsiders (particularly minority workers). Their regulations stop all but the best connected companies. Their open borders keep wages low. Their love of taxes crushes low and middle class workers. Their protectionism hurts consumers. And all their heroes have come from the idle rich class. So much for the little guy.

Myth No. 7: Liberals Aren’t Racist/Sexist/Ageist

Liberals believe everyone else is racist, sexist, etc., but not them. Yet, big liberal cities (like LA, Boston and Washington) have the worst racial problems. Liberal companies don’t hire more minorities than conservative companies. Anyone who knows liberals knows they freely tell racist and sexist jokes. . . which they claim doesn’t make them racist, but would make conservatives racist. Their attacks on conservative blacks and women often take the vilest forms of racism/sexism and few liberals (read: none) will ever raise an objection. And there is a deeply racist underpinning to the liberal view of civil right, i.e. that minorities don’t have the ability to succeed unless white liberals hold their hands the whole way.

Myth No. 8: Liberals Aren’t Full of Hate

Liberals claim everyone else is full of hate. Yet, liberals are the ones who seethe with hate. They rant and rave and want their opponents destroyed. Liberals don’t just want apologies (something they would never feel they owed if the situation was reversed), they want people fired and driven from the public square. They demand re-education, i.e. brainwashing. Their protests turn violent. They want their opponents silenced. They openly hate the rich. . . actually anyone they consider a “have”. They hate religious people. They openly hate Jews again. They hate those who disagree with them. They hate conservatives. They tar their opponents as racists. And they want all of these people crushed by the state.

Myth No. 9: Liberals Are Better People

Liberals believe they are better people, pure and simple. In fact, it's fascinating how self-righteous liberals get about charity. They dismiss the efforts of people engaged in genuine charity, but they think their vote to give your money to someone they feel deserves it more makes them better than you. You see this in every facet of their beliefs. They see themselves as the saviors of the poor, of minorities, and of the very planet. . . all done with your money, though they take all the credit. And they look down on anyone who isn’t as “noble” as they believe they are.

Myth No. 10: Liberals Are Rational

Finally, liberals believe they are rational, but they aren’t -- they act on emotional impulses without any thought to what they are proposing. This is why their policies are often childishly stupid, e.g. “if someone doesn’t have healthcare, then we should just give it to them. Duh.” This is also why they can actively believe things that cannot be true and why they can believe contradictory things at the same time -- because they aren't thinking, they are feeling. This is also why they get so irrationally angry at anyone who disagrees with them, because they a dealing purely in emotion, where disagreement is a personal affront. This is also why they think their good intentions justify their failures. . . "sure you got hurt, but I meant well."

Put simply, liberals are incredibly not-self-aware morons.

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Commentarama Reading List (Part 1)

Today we unveil part one of the Commentarama Reading List. These are the top conservative/liberal fiction books you should know. Next time, I’ll do nonfiction books. Then we’ll finish with books you should know to be well-versed in our culture. Today’s list contains thirteen conservative and eight liberal fiction books that best represent the ideologies. These are well-known/influential books with strong messages about liberal and conservative principles -- even if that wasn’t the author’s intent. A couple will surprise you.

Interestingly, finding books that genuinely belong on the list was difficult. Lots of books include political messages on particular issues, but few truly represent the ideology. Also, breaking these down as liberal or conservative proved difficult, particularly as many authors intended something other than the message they ended up creating. So feel free to disagree with my selections and let me know what you think should be added or subtracted.... maybe we can get the list to 25? FYI, check (HERE) to see my criteria for separating them.

The Conservative Books

1. 1984, George Orwell (1948): Number one has to be 1984. Although Orwell was a socialist with communist sympathies, 1984 became the seminal anti-collectivist, anti-big government book. No other book so clearly expresses the nightmare of all-powerful government crushing the individual. 1984 also was ahead of its time, foreshadowing everything from political correctness to doublespeak to thoughtcrime to the surveillance society. . . Big Brother is watching. This is a must read for conservatives.

2. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1957): A capitalist opus, Rand’s Shrugged graphically portrays the destruction of society by a government that takes from those who can to prop up those who can’t. If economic equations can be expressed as plot points, this novel does that. Singing the virtues of capitalism, competition and self-interest, this book proved prophetic as leftists have systematically tried to repeat the acts of her villains, always with the consequences she predicted. Shrugged is also unapologetic about the fact that socialism is not noble, it is theft and oppression.

3. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (1931): Huxley is a bit of a contradiction. An extreme critic of the utopian visions of the 1930s, he was also an LSD user who fell for every whacko and mystical idea. Nevertheless, Brave New World is an essential companion to 1984. BNW replaces Big Brother’s government with a corporate “The World State,” but the effects are just as onerous as individuality is crushed to serve the collective good. Yet, unlike Orwell’s 1984, this crushing isn’t done by the government stick, it’s done by an endless supply of government carrots that placate and sedate the public. As Huxley explained, the civil libertarians who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

4. Animal Farm, George Orwell (1945): Animal Farm is an attack on Stalinism (which Orwell described as “ceaseless arrests, censored newspapers, prowling hordes of armed police”), but inadvertently tells us why no collectivist society will ever work. Without the possibility of personal profit, the animals become indifferent free riders who don’t work but expect to receive the benefit of everyone else’s labor. And the collectivist leaders quickly set themselves above the law, keeping the spoils of society for themselves and using cold-blooded murder to eliminate their opponents and suppress the population. All animals are equal, but some animals are indeed more equal than others.

5. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (1943): Rand’s Fountainhead brought the concept of objectivism to life. This book teaches that the only way for mankind to achieve its potential is to free individuals from the sabotaging/protectionist efforts of others. This is brought home brilliantly as a bevy of lesser architects struggle to prevent genius Howard Roark from achieving his potential and thereby exposing their own lack of talent. In essence, Rand argues that society should let people exercise their talents without restraint and let them succeed or fail on their own merits.

6. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (1955) and The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (1950): I’ve lumped these together because they’re on the list for the same reasons. Both LOTR and Narnia are favorites of religious conservatives, though some groups complain about “pagan imagery.” But they make our list because they are more than just religious allegories: they advocate classic heroic/ethical values, i.e. the stuff the Greeks described as the noblest parts of humanity -- belief in honor and duty, self-sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, and staunch opposition to evil without trying to justify it as shades of gray. These books define the “personal responsibility” portion of conservative thinking.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960): Listing this as a conservative book may seem counter-intuitive as the Civil Rights Movement has been defined by the left as a liberal idea. But the values taught by Lee outline the conservative view of civil rights -- equality under the law for all individuals combined with moral persuasion to end discrimination. . . not the group rights of liberal thinking. Thus, this book's philosophy does not fit with liberal thinking. Indeed, if this book were published for the first time today, I suspect liberals would attack it as Uncle-Tom-like because of its passive acceptance of the world as it is, i.e. its failure to advocate a government solution.

8. The Trial, Franz Kafka (1925): Kafka is another socialist who gives us a reason to fear the consolidation of power. In particular, The Trial warns us against abandoning the rule of law. In this case, a man is arrested and prosecuted by a government which refuses to show itself to him and which refuses to reveal to him the nature of the crime for which he is being charged. This is more real than you would think.

9. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling (1997): Yep. The Harry Potter series is packed with conservative themes. And while this isn’t a social commentary per se, it does a heck of a job promoting conservative values. For example, as I’ve noted before, the Harry Potter series promotes families, capitalism, individual responsibility, and it shows government to be bureaucratic, corrupt, abusive, manipulative and evil. The series also clearly recognizes the difference between good and evil and doesn’t fall into shades of gray or excusatory psychobabble. These books may not have the gravitas of Lord of the Rings, but their pro-conservative politics are even stronger and more obvious.

10. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (1902): A deeply conservative writer, Conrad hated both socialism and direct democracy. Darkness is Conrad’s attack on colonialism and is about good and evil and the dangers to our souls of doing evil deeds. While modern liberals like to lump colonialism in with other supposed “conservative” crimes, its actual roots were liberal -- a utopian belief that government force used benevolently could make natives better people. That’s the same belief that later powered socialism.

11. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1951): The left loves to accuse the right of book burning, primarily because the Nazis burned books and religious groups periodically try to ban one thing or another. But the Nazis were left-wing and the communists were equally guilty, though they were quieter about it. And in terms of modern thinking, it is the left that seeks to ban politically incorrect books, words and ideas from society. Thus, Fahrenheit is a conservative book as it attacks over-bearing governments that control their people by controlling what ideas they can know about.

12. Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961): An anti-war novel about the marginalization of the individual, this book defined the modern view of bureaucracy. Unlike the darker 1984 and The Trial, Catch-22 explores the circular reasoning and absurdity of bureaucracy as the heroes encounter “no win situations” and “double blinds.” This book does have a counter-culture feel however, and could also be seen as liberal, but its theme is conservative.

13. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein (1966): A novel about a lunar colony’s revolt against rule from Earth, with themes of “rational anarchy” and seeing government as non-existent except as the acts of self-responsible individuals, Heinlein’s Moon is considered one of the most influential libertarian novels of the last century. This book is credited with coining the phrase “there’s no free lunch.”

The Liberal Books

1. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906): Jungle defines progressive politics as it exposes the corrupt practices of the American meatpacking industry and complains about the lack of social programs for the poor. Originally published in a socialist newspaper, Sinclair hoped this would encourage a welfare state. Much to his chagrin, the public focused only on his safety complaints about the meat packing industry and ignored his concerns about the poor.

2. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque (1928): As mentioned the other day, this book is liberal not because it’s anti-war, but because it’s anti-society. This book is anti-officer, anti-family, anti-church, and anti-traditional “heroic” values like honor, duty, self-sacrifice, courage, and friendship. It is the ultimate expression of selfishness, right down to the indifference to the suffering of their comrades. But this is also an excellent book and it became the prism through which modern society would see war.

3. Ulysses, James Joyce (1922): A retelling of the The Odyssey by avant-garde stream of consciousness writer Joyce, Ulysses dwells on the squalor and monotony of life in 1920s Dublin, Ireland. Originally banned as obscene because a character masturbates, this book was the crown jewel of the modernist movement which revolted against realism, tradition, the Enlightenment, and belief in God.

4. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939): The story of sharecropping “Okies” from Oklahoma who flee to California after the dust bowl, this story is leftist propaganda about the idealized working poor being exploited by the demonized rich. It advocates unions and the New Deal, though it complains that not enough money was spent by the benevolent government. Still, it’s a good book for understanding the historical context of the New Deal.

5. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003): On the surface, Code seems like nothing more than conspiratorial fiction. But this book highlights the recent style of attacks on traditional values by the left. This book takes a provably wrong theory that insultingly cuts to the core of Christian belief and presents it as fiction “based on” truth, i.e. it pretends it’s true without saying so. This book is the latest form of soft propaganda.

6. A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen (1879): Ibsen’s House is not only feminist propaganda, but it heralds the truly selfish thinking that dominates liberal thinking. Ibsen’s heroine not only rejects traditional society, but she walks out on responsibilities she’s undertaken, i.e. her children. Ibsen says he wasn’t trying to create “propaganda” for “the women’s rights movement,” but was instead trying to show the need of every individual to become the person they really are. And apparently that means abandoning your family to find yourself. Welcome to the 1960s. . . one hundred years early.

7. The Stand, Stephen King (1990): The Stand appears on some conservative book lists, but I suggest they look closer. The Stand is anti-capitalist, anti-American-society and deeply anti-military, which it shows to be enthusiastic murders. And while many Christians mistake its message for being pro-Christian, it actually advocates liberalism combined with meekness and mysticism as a substitute for religion.

8. Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954): Conservatives believe people are good and can be moved to improvement with moral persuasion. Liberals believe people are evil and must be controlled by force. Flies makes the liberal list because it tells us that left on their own, children will become murderous animals for no particular reason, i.e. it views humans as inherently violent and evil.

Thoughts? Additions? Subtractions? Corrections?

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How To Tell Liberal From Conservative Books

I’m working on a Commentarama reading list, which will be published Thursday evening. Before I do that, however, it might be wise to define “liberal” and “conservative,” as these concepts are rather nebulous and easily confused. Indeed, as we saw when National Review and Big Hollywood started listing “conservative” films, most people have no idea what constitutes a liberal or conservative film, and they instead confuse things they like for "conservative" and things they dislike for "liberal."

For starters, let me recommend that you go back and read my article on What Constitutes A Conservative Film. That article lays out the difference between mere conservative elements and actual conservative stories, and how to spot both. In particular, you need to look at the context of how issues are presented and how conflicts are resolved.

Secondly, let me ask: should we judge a book by its content or the author’s intent? Take 1984. Orwell was a committed socialist and even a fan of Soviet communism (until the truth about Stalin’s murderous ways came out, at which point he disavowed the Soviets, but not communism.) Yet, 1984 is the seminal anti-totalitarian text. How can this be? Because Orwell meant 1984 as an attack on Nazism, which he considered a right-wing philosophy and which he didn’t see as being at all like communism. So should we call this a leftist book because Orwell meant to attack what he perceived to be a “conservative” philosophy, or should we call it a conservative book because it attacks leftist oppressive government? I believe we should treat books for what they actually are, not what they are intended.

So how do we separate liberal from conservative books? Well, let’s start with the problem: confusion.

Liberalism and conservatism are often confused for a variety of reasons. For one thing, these ideologies are not always honest about what they believe because they know it will not play to the mainstream. (Liberals in particular use rhetoric that does not match their actions.) This blurs the line. Moreover, sometimes liberals/conservatives take ideological positions on particular issues that they would normally oppose so as to maintain political alliances or because of historical accidents. Also, some people who claim to be liberals/ conservatives really aren’t, and they advocate things that are antithetical to the underlying principles of the ideology. Populists and kooks fall into this category as they shift back and forth between pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Yet these groups are “loud” enough that liberalism/conservatism often gets associated with their views.

More importantly, however, both liberals and conservatives largely see the same problems and injustices within society and thus lay claim to the same issues. This generates further blurring and thereby confusion. However, the two ideologies almost always differ in the solutions they propose. And that is where we must look.

To understand this point, one must realize that both modern liberalism and modern conservatism claim roots in classical liberalism -- although the liberal claim is dishonest. Classical liberalism advocated the rights of the individual against the state. It believed in things like freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion or non-religion, freedom of property, freedom of person, and freedom from conformity. However, those freedoms were not unfettered, as classical liberalism also assumed that personal responsibility was required to exercise those rights and government intervention was allowed when personal responsibility failed. Modern conservatism grew from these roots and largely continues to follow these principles today -- a balancing of individual rights against personal responsibility.

By comparison, modern liberalism adopted the rhetoric of individual rights, but actually disdains those rights. Instead, it advocates collective rights and imposition of a solution by those in authority. This is because modern liberalism really traces its roots back to progressivism, which sought to use government power to fix the ills of society. Moreover, liberalism has disdain for the concept of individual responsibility. Instead, it balances competing group interests.

What this means is that when you get a topic like civil rights, it is propaganda to say that one side cares more than the other about the issue. Indeed, both sides have adopted this as a cause. But they see the issue differently and they advocate very different solutions. For example, the conservative solution is to require equality under the law combined with moral persuasion to get people to see all individuals in a color-blind way. The liberal solution is to use the power of government to force group equality. Moreover, both define equality differently, with conservatives believing in equality of opportunity and liberals believing in equality of result. Other issues are similarly divided.

Thus, when trying to separate books into liberal or conservative, the relevant question is not what issues they address, the relevant question is what solutions they propose?

Now let me add two caveats. First, on conservatism: it is important to realize that being religious and being conservative are not the same thing. Religion deals with the relationship between ourselves and God, politics deals with the relationship between man and the state. Thus, being politically conservative and being religious address two different aspects of the human condition. There can be significant overlap, particularly as many people let their religious views inform their sense of personal responsibility, but it is very possible to be conservative without being religious. The corollary is true as well, as it is equally easy to be religious without being politically conservative. What this means in terms of labeling books is that just because a book has a religious theme does not make it conservative. . . it makes it religious. Whether or not the book is also politically conservative will depend on how the religious themes are applied to the relationship between man and the state.

Secondly, on liberalism: there is another aspect of liberalism that must be considered. Liberalism has a destructive core that asserts itself periodically. That’s why socialist movements turned to violence in the 1900s, 1930s, and 1960s. And that’s why the counter-culture found a home within liberalism and why counter-culture values, i.e. the tearing down of existing societal institutions and norms, continue to hold so much sway within liberalism today. Thus, books that promote counter-culture values, even where the underlying issue may be of concern to both conservatives or liberals, must be considered liberal.

A good example of this would be All Quiet On The Western Front, which predates the official counter-culture movement, but shares its elements. Neither left nor right is “pro war.” Both have found reasons to start wars and both have shown a willingness to resist wars. Thus, it would be wrong to say the anti-war All Quiet is a liberal book just because liberals have been more anti-war lately than conservatives (in the 1930s, this was reversed.) What makes All Quiet a liberal book, rather than a conservative book, is its disdain for the traditional institutions of society. This book is not merely anti-war, but it is anti-officer, anti-church, anti-family, and anti-hero, by which I mean it disdains the individual values society normally considers noble, i.e. self-sacrifice, courage, honesty, faith, etc. That puts the book firmly into the counter-culture wing of liberalism and makes it a liberal book.

And let me be clear on this counter-culture point. Merely advocating change does not make one an advocate of counter-culture values. Counter-culture values are at odds with society and human nature as a whole and they seek to destroy existing institutions rather than reform them -- it is the difference between eliminating racism within police ranks (i.e. reform) and eliminating the police force (i.e. counter-culture values). Counter-culture values tend to be extremely radical.

That’s how I would divide books ideologically. If they propose a government or collectivist solution or they advocate group rights, or if they advocate counter-culture values associated with breaking traditional society, then they are liberal. But if they advocate freedom for the individual vis-à-vis the state coupled with individual responsibility, but without pushing those freedoms to the point of being counter-culture beliefs, then they are conservative.

Agree?

Tune in Thursday for the list. . .

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Utopia Forgotten: The Left's Intellectual Collapse

The sad truth is there is no longer any point in talking to leftists as they have nothing of value to offer anymore. And the reason is they have lost any semblance of a philosophy and have devolved into a subspecies of retarded human that feeds on spite, excretes arrogance, and revels in ignorance and hypocrisy, all the while self-righteously claiming moral and intellectual superiority.

When I was in college, I had a leftist professor that I respected a great deal. He was an intelligent man who had given the world a great deal of thought and had put in years of research to flesh out his beliefs. He was well-versed in economics, psychology, and history, and he was a joy to talk to. What I found really interesting was that we both saw many of the same problems in society. Indeed, in many ways, if we laid out our vision of the ideal society, my version and his version would have been surprisingly similar. Where we parted company, however, was in how to get there. Indeed, after hours of argument, we realized that we had fundamentally different views of human nature, and this led to different ideas about how to achieve our goals. I take the view that human nature only changes when people want to change themselves. Thus, all we can do to fix society is to lay out the moral reasons for the change and then provide incentives to “do the right thing.” He took the view that human nature can be changed by government fiat, and that people will conform to the “new normal.” I thought his ideas were inconsistent with human experience and were destined to fail because imposing change upon people only breeds resentment and subversion. He thought my ideas would never work to help the “most vulnerable.” So we agreed to disagree, but we definitely shared a great deal of respect for each other.

He is the last leftist I ever respected, however.

Since his time, the left has lost its mind. His version of finding the best way forward through a thoughtful examination of the world is gone. Indeed, the left has all but abandoned ideology and no longer even has a "utopia" that it is trying to achieve.

Instead, the new left preaches hate, spite and grievance, without purpose or an ultimate goal apart from achieving political power. It no longer seeks to build anyone up, but instead seeks to tear down those it despises. It no longer seeks the moral high ground or to attune us to some higher truth, it seeks rigid conformity to lies that it deems politically expedient. And it is deeply intolerant, seeking to personally destroy all who dare disagree. This is once again evident in recent events:

Take the case of evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa who just released a study finding that black women were rated as less attractive than women of other races. Now I take no position on his study as I haven’t seen his data, but his results are plausible based on other studies about interracial marriage. But that doesn’t interest me. What interests me is the firestorm reaction.

Within minutes of the article’s posting, the usual leftist suspects called for his article to be removed from the site that published it along with all his prior articles. This accompanied universal calls for the termination of his employment and a slew of articles calling him a racist. No word on death threats yet, but I’m sure they’re coming. Now here’s the critical part: these demands were made before anyone even saw his data. In other words, the truth or falsity of his study was not relevant to the left. He said something they didn’t like and they wanted him silenced.

Then came his fellows to debunk his study. They attacked him for failing to properly analyze the data even as the admitted they hadn’t yet seen how he conducted the analysis. Think about that. They denounced him without having any basis to do so. Then came the coup de grace: they attacked him for reaching a conclusion even though many of the respondents in his data had voiced different opinions. In other words, they claim it was improper for him to reach a conclusion when his data did not show 100% conformity to that conclusion. That is beyond disingenuous and borders on Wonderland-ian criticism. Indeed, if we accept this as a valid criticism, then we are dismissing the entire field of statistics because you NEVER have 100% conformity. For a scientist to make such a statement is truly Orwellian.

What’s more, while they’re all bowing and scraping to the gods of racial sensitivity, let me remind you of something said by prominent black racist Jill Scott, who was invited by Obama to the White House: “As slavery died for the greater good of America, and the movement for equality sputtered to life, the White woman was on the cover of every American magazine. . . She was unequivocally the standard of beauty for this country, firmly unattainable to anyone not of her race. We daughters of the dust were seen as ugly, nappy mammies.” Basically, she’s asserting as truth what Kanazawa claims to have found statistically, yet he’s being burned at the stake for being a racist heretic for saying it.

This is the problem with much of leftist “thought” today: only certain people can say certain truths. . . the rest are required to swear to shifting lies in the name of pushing whatever the present ideology is.

Now take the case of British singer Adele, who just discovered that paying taxes sucks. Here is her quote: “I'm mortified to have to pay 50%! . . . When I got my tax bill in from the album, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.” She further clarified that she was particularly upset that she gets nothing for the taxes she pays.

At last check, there were 866 comments on this article and all of them were vile. Some denied reality, claiming that she’s lying about what she paid and denying that anyone actually pays 50%. Others said she should be thankful that “we let her keep any of it.” Oh, I didn’t know she was your slave? But most just called her fat, a bitch, a whore, a “selfish fucking idiot,” or accused her of stealing her music. Then they wished her ill, both personally and professionally. (About 10% of the comments were so vile they had been deleted by the moderator.) Think about this. She makes the point that paying 50% of your income in taxes is wrong and the responses fall into these categories: (1) denials of reality, (2) demands to punish her for speaking, and (3) hateful personal attacks. This is what passes for leftist thought today. By the way, not one single person rebutted her claims.

So what exactly does the left stand for? Does it want equality for all as it claimed in the 1960s? Hardly. It wants to substitute one group of oppressors for another. Does it want freedom? Hell no. It certainly doesn’t want you to have freedom of speech or thought. It hates religious freedom and property rights. God forbid you want a gun, or a car, or a hamburger. Does it want equal economic opportunity for all? No. It doesn't even want equality of result. It just wants to take everything you have away from you so that it can have it instead. . . actually, I’m not even sure most leftists want what you have. I get the feeling, they just don’t want you having it.

Thus, a philosophy that once stood for moral and economic equality (wrong though their views were) has devolved into a hateful club of subhumans who only want to hurt others. I honestly see nothing else that they believe in.

And if you think I’m wrong, then by all means, I challenge you to tell me what exactly the left wants? And don’t give me any generic crap about “fairness” and “equality,” those are words out of the leftist past that no longer have any modern meaning. Tell me exactly what the leftist utopia would look like. . . because from what I’m seeing, it looks an awful lot like a gulag.

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