So then, what you’re saying is, people with conservative right-political convictions can have extremisms which are principled disciplines and are therefore the very soul of their existence and can become subjective in nature rather than objective in nature. And people with liberal left-political views are pawns without exercising their intellects to the point of developing principled disciplines and therefore having no soul, but instead a State created existence, personally shallow.
The former has various levels of ‘Critical Thinking’ while the latter does not and believes critical thinking is nothing more than mean insults thrown about as a young child does–projecting their immaturity onto their political enemy, knowing only subjectivism as the determiner of all things. The former succeeds due to exhaustive comprehensive planning while the latter fails due to the total lack of any realistic planning at all.
— There is no left wing extremism! David Douglass
I’m trying to parse this so I’ll take in in chunks.
I do believe that people that lean conservative or right are more likely to have principled disciplines. Stated differently, I have found that people on the right are consistent in their beliefs. That if they have a moral principle it is highly likely that they apply that principle across the vast majority of their lives.
When I was fighting for my children I had to take a psych evaluation. One of the questions in that survey was “do you lie?”. The answer I gave was “yes”. Yes, I do lie. Sometimes it is to hide information or to mislead. In other cases it is because to bluntly tell the truth would hurt somebody I love and that is worse than the lie.
“Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” “You are beautiful no matter what you are wearing. I love you without bounds.”
The left has goals. The principles they seem to live by are built around those goals. Since they are goal oriented this means that their principles morph depending on the goal. They want Trump out of office so him holding on to the rail as he walks down a wet ramp is an indication that he is unhealthy and should be removed from office. They want Joe in office so him falling multiple times walking up the steps is nothing.
Trump says something rude and it will cause world war III, remove him from office! Joe sends military aid to somebody that is threatening nuclear war and it “is the right thing to do.” Everything is goal oriented.
When somebody on the right is looking at principles, they discuss principles. “If I am against abortion, are there any exceptions? How is abortion different than the death penalty? How can I hold an anti abortion point of view at the same time I believe in the death penalty?”
I am looking at the principle and making sure that it is consistent across my entire view point.
The left seems to look at an issue, judge the person based on their opinion on that issue, then start hating that person. Once they have decided that a person or idea is evil, then the goal becomes removing that person or idea. They aren’t looking at first principles, they are looking at the goal.
If Amy Coney Barrett becomes a supreme court justice then Roe v Wade will fall. The left hates Amy and anything they can find to justify that hate is grist for the mill. They will attack because of the goal.
This goal orientation is what allows a leftist to hate one person for an opinion while loving another person for the exact same opinion. Obama taking 30,000+ documents with him when he left office is no big thing. Him promising to scan and return them is all that is required. Trump taking many less is cause for an FBI raid.
Nobody asks why they didn’t raid Obama, Obama is the light giver, Trump is the devil come to earth.
I refuse to see people on the left as not thinking. I believe that there are many very smart people on the left. People that have good, grounded, principles. The problem is that when they let their emotions take control they stop thinking and start emoting.
It is well known that people respond to emotional appeals much more readily than to appeals to the intellect. There are people that have huge communications channels that know this and use it.
An example of this sort of emotional appeal is the assault weapons ban. Many leftists want an AWB. Assault Weapons are so deadly and dangerous using such deadly ammunition that no civilian should ever be allowed to own them.
When I’m talking to an open minded leftist about guns and they are willing to listen I’ll show them ammunition and ask them to decide which is the one they wish to ban, because it is just too deadly. They always go for the big stuff. 30-06, 7.62x54r, 7.62×51 NATO are all “evil” in their eyes. They never pick the 5.56×45. Never.
I then ask them to decide which of two rifles they would ban, the M1 or the AR15, showing them both. If I show them the AR-15 dressed in black with the tacticool stuff attached, they want to ban that. If I show them “Mrs. Pink”, an AR-15 with pink furniture they are much less sure of themselves.
It is the emotional appeal that has them hating.
It is difficult to cause a principled man to change his principles. This is why we talk about the dimmer vs. the switch. People on the right have an off on switch. The people on the left use a dimmer. It is easy to turn the dimmer up just a little bit more.
To flip the switch requires that the principles a man believes in must align or be broken.
A man that is peaceful does not wish to become violent. Yet there is that point where they do flip that switch. Harming my children would cause that switch to flip for me. I would do what I can to “make it right”.
Why I believe the right succeeds is another article. I have to think on that for a bit.
Comments
5 responses to “Response to a reader comment”
Few thoughts.
1. Read KinderGarden Of Eden: How the Modern Liberal Thinks by Evan Sayat.
https://www.amazon.com/KinderGarden-Eden-Modern-Liberal-Thinks/dp/1480010421
The premise is your modern liberal is a child. They think like a child and act like a child.
If you are not a reader, look for the speech Evan Sayat gave at the Heritage foundation. It is about 45 minutes long, including the Q&A session. Covers most of the salient points.
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2. Leftists, please do not call them liberals, there is a huge difference, are really toddlers. They want, and they will make any claims they need in order to get what they want. Examples abound, but all of them remind me of a nephew who claims that TV is bad for you and causes headaches when there is something on he does not want to see, but it is OK when it is what he wants.
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3. Leftists, like the toddlers they are, do not know how to build things up. They can only tear down. “Critical ______ theory” took root with the leftists, not the conservatives because leftists will choose to focus solely on the negatives. (reminder, the operative word in critical _______ theory is critical, not race, economics, whatever is in the blank) That is why racism is such a problem in the US, the leftists will refuse to acknowledge that race is not really a problem. Thus, they need to seek out problems and make them issues, no matter how minor.
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4. And, yes. The players on my favorite team would never commit a penalty, but the players on whatever team they are playing are guilty of every offense in the rule book. It takes an adult to realize this, and look at the events with an adult eye. If the leftists were calling for audits of elections in 2016 because there were a host of questionable events happening during the counting, as an adult, I would absolutely say audit it. Either Trump’s win was legit, or the people who committed the fraud need to go to jail. But, 2020? Nope, the winners are filing lawsuits to stop the audits. Why? Because they are terrified of what might show up, and their “win” might be taken away.
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5. Finally, when a child gets what they want, legitimately or underhanded, they will assume the next one will go their way, and the one after that, etc…. It is why Harry Reid thought killing the filibuster for Presidential appointees was a safe move. After all, the Dems did so well in the last elections, their majority was going to be the new 1,000 year Reich. But… children can learn a lesson as well. Which is why the Democrat’s first act in 2021was a massive overhaul of the election nationwide, essentially placing control of all elections in the hands of whoever was in the majority in DC.
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A conservative will take the loss, get on with their life, and work on ways to do better next time. The leftists will throw a tantrum, scream at the sky, and seek ways to cheat (or harm) their opponent for the next conflict.
@CBMTTek:
“Leftists, please do not call them liberals, there is a huge difference,”
Totally. They have no interest in individual liberty. Only power over others.
“The problem is that when they let their emotions take control they stop thinking and start emoting.”
Agreed.
“They always go for the big stuff. 30-06, 7.62x54r, 7.62×51 NATO are all “evil” in their eyes. They never pick the 5.56×45. Never.”
I do a similar thing in my classes. Rarely does anyone pick the 5.56×45.
A good (IMHO) analysis of abortion vs death penalty- killing unborn children is killing innocent children. Death penalty is for criminals who have committed crimes and will do it again, and again, and again… one is innocent one is guilty of crime. We could beat all this to death. Left are “goal oriented “?? But all I see for goals is the elimination of all who disagree with them. We conservative are goal oriented- limit gubmint and Freedom for ALL America…
I was careful not to state what my analysis of the question was. I still have issues with the death penalty but it has more to do with false convictions than it does with “does a person that raped, killed, and then raped a 12 year old child deserve to die?”