One Left-Wing Ring to Rule Them All

National Review ^ | 1/12/2016 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Servant of the Cross]

Proper liberal credentials trump all the usual forms of identity politics.

In the 21st century, doctrinaire liberalism is synonymous with hypocrisy.

Or maybe it is better seen as career insurance, providing exemption from all the many paradoxes of a leftist worldview.

The rich supporter of affirmative action still uses, without apology, the old-boy network to pull privileged strings to get his own son admitted to the proper college. Al Gore flies on a carbon-spewing private jet, saving the planet by getting to conferences more quickly and enjoyably. High-tax proponent John Kerry docks his yacht where he can avoid taxes; how else to ensure downtime for furthering social justice?

A spread-the-wealth Obama, who warns others about making too much money and profiting at all the wrong times, nonetheless chooses the tony haunts of the moneyed and privileged - the Hawaiian resort coast, Martha's Vineyard, Rancho Mirage - in preference to the old Chicago hood or even Camp David.

It is hard to be a progressive in a sea of capitalist lucre, or an idealist when careerism pays so much better, or personally frugal when personal excess is contextualized and made guilt-free by an abstract selfless agenda.

So how does one balance the conflicting elements of the progressive worldview? (snip)

To borrow from Tolkien, the assertion of leftism is the "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

[Servant of the Cross]

Being liberal means never having to say you're sorry for being a raving hypocritical lunatic.

[Servant of the Cross]

VDH ping ...

[Servant of the Cross]

But in the hierarchies of political correctness, whose cause prevails? The right of young urban females not to have to worry about predatory sexist males, or the deference and allowance given the proverbial non-Western "other," who supposedly has grievances against so-called colonialist, imperialist, and racist Europe? Which would mattress girl side with?

Prepare for the liberals to be hoisted upon their own petard.

... a classic foretaste of the coming collisions between the Morlock premodern and the Eloi postmodern worlds.

[ripley]

“Being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry for being a raving hypocritical lunatic.”

Correction: “Being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry for being a raving, psychotic, adolescent, obnoxious, hypocritical lunatic.”

IMHO

[VR-21]

"...his jacked-up profits came from the illiberal royal house of Qatar, whose cash comes mostly from mammoth sales of carbon-spewing, climate-changing fossil fuels...

VDH is excellent as usual, but I wish he would have pointed out that the Gore family fortune was largely made from shares of Occidental Petroleum they acquired in a sweetheart deal from Kremlin bag-man Armand Hammer. The Gores did rather well from tobacco too I think.

[EQAndyBuzz]

The only reason this exists is because no one calls them out on it. Reagan did, but that’s where it ended. So we have had 30+ years of uncontested liberalism.

What bothers me the most about this is Alinsky handed us the left’s playbook and Republicans still refuse to read past the title. Which leads me to believe the three political parties in the US are the Fascist Party, the Communist Party and the Conservative Party. Unfortunately a good chunk of Americans are so in the dark that they choose one of the two parties to vote for.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“How does one adjudicate when various –isms and –ologies conflict with one another — radical feminism versus sexual emancipation, environmentalism versus the customs of indigenous peoples, free speech versus correct speech, integration and free expression versus safe spaces and trigger warnings?”

So called liberal hypocrisy is actually very easy to understand once you realize that the positions they take is always based on what advances their agenda TODAY. It doesnt matter whether today’s position or statement is the opposite of yesterday’s. ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHAT IS MOST USEFUL TODAY.

[Madame Dufarge]

pingy.

[ripley]

Beginning to think here that it’s done, stick a fork in it.

The Constitution has become a hazy document that means what any Progressive thinks it means, the oath that is taken to “uphold” it has become an exercise in frivolity that has no meaning, and throughout the electorate is the belief that the Constitution doesn’t take care of “the needs of the people” and is a dead and or useless document.

Ask anyone you encounter to say from where these words are taken: “When in the course of human events...” as opposed to “Workers of the world, unite!”

IMHO

[Disambiguator]

What bothers me the most about this is Alinsky handed us the left's playbook and Republicans still refuse to read past the title

That's because it's a horrible read. I have a copy (know thy enemy), but I could not finish it.

If you want a front-row seat to a disordered mind, read Alinsky.