"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I have not read this yet, but look forward to. Thanks for the post!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ... stop it, you're killin' me.
Lose their souls .... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
"I had escaped from my prior partisan mindset (reject first, ask rhetorical questions later), and began to think..."
And began to understand.
I think this twit has never known love.
Yes, conservatism and the difference between evil and good are simple, straight forward concepts. Liberals are always looking to find the elusive golden thread that links the universe together. Conservatives do what is right for America; Liberals do what they perceive to be right for the world. Too bad it's programmed in their genes.
bump
Great! Now I need a new keyboard!
Memo to self - don't drink coffeee while reading liberal analysis of conservatism.
Here's something that jumped out at me:
Whenever Democrats support policies that weaken the integrity and identity of the collective (such as multiculturalism, bilingualism, and immigration), they show that they care more about pluribus than unum
It is not a conincidence that Al Gore once mistakenly referred to the Latin phrase as meaning "Out of one, we are many."
I call BS. Too many false basic assumptions.
Wrong right out of the gate.
Interesting article, but I didn’t think liberals would all into Mills. My favorite quote of his is-
“War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
That seems to reflect our philosophy.
Only a liberal needs 30 paragraphs to come to the understanding that intelligence trumps emotionalism.
My economic interests are not better served by the Democrats. You cannot tax your way to prosperity. You cannot make this a better country by taking from those who are productive and redistributing it to those who aren't. But more than that, the Democrats are against everything I stand for. I believe in the Second Amendment, they want to disarm me. I believe in letting babies live, but I also believe in capital punishment while the Democrats get it wrong on both counts. I believe in a strong military, the Democrats would gut it. I believe in private medicine, the Democrats would nationalize it. I believe in minimal government, the Democrats want to control everything. There is very little the Democrats and I agree on, especially when they're actually being honest about what they want for America.
This takes some wading through, but it's worth it. And some of the observations are quite profound in their articulation.
A point worth musing on:
Democrats generally use a much smaller part of the spectrum than do Republicans. The resulting music may sound beautiful to other Democrats, but it sounds thin and incomplete to many of the swing voters that left the party in the 1980s, and whom the Democrats must recapture if they want to produce a lasting political realignment.
In The Political Brain, Drew Westen points out that the Republicans have become the party of the sacred, appropriating not just the issues of God, faith, and religion, but also the sacred symbols of the nation such as the Flag and the military. The Democrats, in the process, have become the party of the profane—of secular life and material interests. Democrats often seem to think of voters as consumers; they rely on polls to choose a set of policy positions that will convince 51% of the electorate to buy. Most Democrats don't understand that politics is more like religion than it is like shopping.
[snip]
The Democrats must find a way to close the sacredness gap that goes beyond occasional and strategic uses of the words "God" and "faith." But if Durkheim is right, then sacredness is really about society and its collective concerns. God is useful but not necessary. The Democrats could close much of the gap if they simply learned to see society not just as a collection of individuals—each with a panoply of rights--but as an entity in itself, an entity that needs some tending and caring. Our national motto is e pluribus unum ("from many, one"). Whenever Democrats support policies that weaken the integrity and identity of the collective (such as multiculturalism, bilingualism, and immigration), they show that they care more about pluribus than unum. They widen the sacredness gap.
*** end excerpt ***
The thing is, Democrats CANNOT close the sacredness gap. Their world view, which essentially boils down to moral nihlism, will never be consistent with an appropriate reverence for our society and nation as an entity that is larger than self and which should be served as such.
Well actually, SOME well-educated (East-coast multi-degreed) persons believe that our economic interest is best served by opportunity (and concomitant risk) - the ordered meritocracy rather than hierarchy. We thrive on the uncertainty of trying. We wither under a guaranteed, but lower, reward schedule. In otgher words, our economic interest is freedom.
The challenge for the liberal mind is evident in this piece - to not be overly reliant on critical thinking and its inevitable proof of the flawed liberal hypothesis.
I think this thread on Bidens charity contributions helps illustrate some of the points this author makes perfectly.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2081006/posts
A truly interesting perspective. We get them, but I doubt they will ever get us...
But why does it always require government intervention and picking someone else's pocket to pay for their moral urges?
I always get a kick out of libs decrying Christians imposing their moral values on others. When's the last time a preacher used IRS thugs to fill the church coffers?
Why do San Francisco libs need to work through the Democratic party and the federal tax code so checks can be sent to Washington, and then sent back to be disbursed to the poor of San Francisco? Wouldn't a little private organizing be more effective and more rewarding to these people?
Similarly why do the libs need a government dictum to make them stop using fossil fuels? Just stop! Why are the streets of San Francisco full of cars?
Apologies for the tangential rant. I feel better now.
A good article, but I would say that conseervative political orientation goes beyond moral concerns. Despite whatever “help” the government might provide, a large number of people simply do not want government intrusion in their private lives. And they wisely perceive welfare as a loan, a debt that can never be repaid, rather than the commission of charity.
The author correctly points out that many of the things our culture regards as “wrong” are in fact mere custom (not eating dog meat, for example). Every culture has customs, and the fact that an act is outside of custom (though not immoral) does not mean that it is any less repugnant to that culture.
But the welfare state is hardly an instrument of unalloyed social good, and there is an element of immorality (and not simply transgression of custom) in a provider state. To make the system work, wealth must be taken away from those who produced it, and given to those who did not (usually the recipients are in some politically favored group). Hayek showed that private human action more efficiently distributes capital than central planning. So under a welfare state, everyone is less well off so that less productive people are better off. The producers of wealth have their assets expropriated for uplift programs that are rarely,if ever, exposed to rational scrutiny.
It is difficult to justify the welfare state under either a consequentialist or a utilitarian moral system. So leftists resort to a Rawlesian system of natural rights. Of course, Rawles had to ignore property rights as a human right to make his system work. History shows us that human rights are not long tolerated by the state when there are not strong property rights.
Further, to quote the author, “If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. “ This is also true of those on the left. Do government programs actually help their intended targets? If so, are the benefits received greater than the social costs? Let’s use the construction of large-scale housing projects in the 50s and 60s under the aegis of the FHA as an example. Nearly two trillion dollars were spent on projects such as Cabrini Green and Stateway Gardens, and on Section 8 vouchers, for which we have little to show today except empty lots where the buildings stood, and a black underclass.
Leftists usually ignore unintended consequences, while avoidance of unintended consequences is a central feature of conservative and libertarian political philosophy. Perhaps working class people accept the existence of unintended consequences, and align themselves with the more conservative of the two parties as a result? Leftists really are more “intellectual” than those on the right, in the sense that when ideas clash with reality, leftists cling to their theories, and try to force the world to conform to them.