The Paradox of Dogma: How the Left Is Crippling Itself

The Federalist.com ^ | 4/29/2015 | Robert Tracinski

[Beave Meister]

If you try to shut down public debate, is this a way of ensuring that you win—or an admission that you have already lost?

The question seems relevant today, because the most remarkable characteristic of our current national debate is that one side wants desperately to stamp it out whenever it occurs.

Recently, for example, a gay New York businessman had the temerity to sponsor a “fireside chat” with Republican presidential candidate and arch-conservative Ted Cruz. He was, of course, required to repent the error, calling it “a terrible mistake” to actually talk to a politician who disagrees with him about gay marriage. We can assume that no gay businessman or activist will repeat that error any time soon, which is the whole point.

[Beave Meister]

Spot on. The hypnotized never lie.

[nickcarraway]

How is the left crippling itself? They’ve been getting everything they want?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

I’d like to believe this but the evidence does not bear it out. The Left has been winning most of the battles on both the economic and social issues. No one was for gay marriage 20 years ago. Now its a given. A deficit of $1 trillion would have been obscene to most politicians, even Democrats, 20 years ago. Now both Dems and Republicans are OK with it. The Left screams and threatens and digs in and, after an initial period of being flustered, the Right accepts the Left’s position. And its precisely because the Left screams and threatens and demands. Its sad but it works.

[mbarker12474]

When just one of:

Associated Press
Reuters
BBC
APF
NBC television entertainment OR news
CBS television entertainment OR news
ABC television entertainment OR news
NBC radio
CBS radio
ABC radio
MSNBC
CNN
NPR
PBS

are toppled and put out of existence, AND/OR:

any of the big three lose their license monopoly for channels 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

then that will be the first sign that the left is somehow crippling itself. A Republican Congress won’t event smash NPR or PBS funding. It is over. We are finished.

[Pollster1]

More recently, the actress Alice Eve got into trouble for stating the obvious fact that Bruce Jenner is not a woman. She, too, was forced to recant, concluding: “I felt confused and now I feel enlightened and like I know what education I need to move forward.” What gives this a creepy totalitarian feel is the way she found it necessary, not only to change her views, but to express gratitude for her re-education.

Photo of Alice Eve, whoever that is.

George Orwell predicted today's totalitarian socialist strategies, basing his novels on the totalitarian socialists of his time:

“Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache . . . But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”

[Bratch]

Alice Eve is most known for this:

[Pollster1]

Thank you. I could (and should!) have checked on my own. Now I remember her as the high point of the movie, but for some reason I didn’t recognize her face.

[NormsRevenge]

Amalgamated RePRESSive Services Inc. or what?

The Journolists Hall Of Fame Future nominees.

[wiggen]

that was good.

[AZLiberty]

Calling Bruce Jenner a woman is like calling gay "marriage" marriage. Jenner wishes he were a woman and he's doing an extreme makeover to approximate his goal, but he's never going to be a woman, except in newspeak.

Brings to mind Abe Lincoln's joke:

Q: If you call its tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have?

A: Four. Calling it a leg does not mean it is one.