The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
In response to last week’s Obamacare Supreme Court decision:
I once harbored feelings that it would all hold together until I was gone. Now I’m a whole lot less sure.
In comments, from Raging’ Dave:
Hold together? Not even close. Now that the Supreme Clown Court has tossed the Rule of Law aside in order to save Obamacare, the debt bomb that was coming down on us just got rocket boosters so it can out-do terminal velocity.
From an answer over at Quora.com to the question: “What do normal Americans think about ‘Draw Prophet Muhammed Cartoon Contest’ organized in Garland, Texas? Was the event about freedom of speech or did it focus on developing anti-Islam sentiments?”
The whole answer is excellent, but I wanted to archive this portion:
We are as viciously, passionately, ready-to-wage-warringly, married to our freedoms as Muslims are to their prophet Muhammad. Never presume that your beliefs are somehow magically more super-duper special than ours just because they are attached to a religious idea. Never fool yourself into believing that others aren’t as dedicated to their philosophical perspective just because you think that your belief is right and theirs is wrong.
Can’t do it any better than that.
Yes she can:
Whoever wrote that article knows what the windows on the short bus taste like.
“Flaming rage nozzles of tolerance.”If you haven’t been following the Sad Puppies assault to wrest control of Science Fiction’s Hugo award away from the tiny Leftist clique that has been running it for the last decade or so, this won’t mean much to you, but Brad’s piece really is more widely directed than at just this one battleground.
From What Scares the New Atheists, an op-ed piece by author John Gray in the UK’s Guardian:
It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism. If an earlier generation of unbelievers shared the racial prejudices of their time and elevated them to the status of scientific truths, evangelical atheists do the same with the liberal values to which western societies subscribe today – while looking with contempt upon “backward” cultures that have not abandoned religion. The racial theories promoted by atheists in the past have been consigned to the memory hole – and today’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.
It’s a reassuringly simple equation. In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. When organised as a movement and backed by the power of the state, atheist ideologies have been an integral part of despotic regimes that also claimed to be based in science, such as the former Soviet Union. Many rival moralities and political systems – most of them, to date, illiberal – have attempted to assert a basis in science. All have been fraudulent and ephemeral. Yet the attempt continues in atheist movements today, which claim that liberal values can be scientifically validated and are therefore humanly universal.
If the topic interests you, RTWT.
Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame, and the HMFIC of mikeroweWORKS.com and Profoundly Disconnected) often posts at Facebook. From one of his more recent comes today’s QotD:
Q – Last month on NPR, I thought I heard you say negative advertising was a serious threat to democracy. Did I hear you right? Tony Libonate
A – I don’t recall saying that, but I don’t disagree. Negative ads are dangerous because, in spite of all the vitriol, they’re actually very passive. They don’t ask us to vote for Candidate X; they ask us NOT to vote for Candidate Y. It’s basically a call to inaction, and the unintended consequence is killing us. Consider:
If Coke spends a billion dollars trying to convince America that Pepsi has shit in it, fewer Americans will buy Pepsi. Likewise, if Pepsi spends a billion dollars saying the same thing about Coke, fewer Americans will buy Coke. When the dust settles, one brand will still outsell the other. But along the way, millions of Americans will conclude that Pepsi and Coke are BOTH tainted, and stop drinking soda altogether. And so it goes with the electorate. Over the years, Republicans and Democrats have convinced us that the other side is full of shit. Now, congressional approval is under 15%, and voter turnout is at an all-time low. That’s not a coincidence.
As others have observed, “Democracy works for those who show up.” Making sure as few as possible show up, as Mike says, is not a coincidence. It’s a strategy.
From Ringing Out the Year with Liberal Double Standards:
If you work from the dogmatic assumption that liberalism is morally infallible and that liberals are, by definition, pitted against sinister and — more importantly — powerful forces, then it’s easy to explain away what seem like double standards. Any lapse, error or transgression by conservatives is evidence of their real nature, while similar lapses, errors and transgressions by liberals are trivial when balanced against the fact that their hearts are in the right place.
Which is basically a restating of Charles Krauthammer’s observation from 2002:
To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
Read both articles.
The Empress of Snark does it again as only she can:
Meanwhile, we have Michael Tomasky, whose entire career arc has been one long angry atonement for the sin of having to move to Manhattan instead of being born there…
Were there any justice in the world, Tam’s snark would leave scars.
My students do know — because they have been taught this — that America is run by all-powerful racists who will never let them win. My students know — because they have been drilled in this — that the only way they can get ahead is to locate and cultivate those few white liberals who will pity them and scatter crumbs on their supplicant, bowed heads and into their outstretched palms. My students have learned to focus on the worst thing that ever happened to them, assume that it happened because America is unjust, and to recite that story, dirge-like, to whomever is in charge, from the welfare board to college professors, and to await receipt of largesse.
– Danusha V. Goska, 10 Reasons I Am No Longer a Leftist
Read the whole thing.
I am reminded of this 2011 “Truth in Fiction” excerpt from the science fiction novel The Road to Damascus:
(The party) is composed of two tiers. The lower tier produces many outspoken members who make their demands known to the upper tier. The lower tier is derived from the inner-city population that serves as the base of the party. The lower tier’s members are generally educated in public school systems and if they aspire to advanced training, they are educated in facilities provided by the state. This wing constitutes the majority of (the party’s) membership, but contributes little or nothing to party theory or platform. It votes the party line and is rewarded with cash payments, subsidized housing, subsidized education, and occasional preferential employment in government positions. The lower tier provides only a handful of clearly token individuals allowed to serve in high offices.
The upper tier, which includes most of the party’s management, virtually all the appointed and elected government officials, and all of the party’s decision-makers, is drawn exclusively from suburban areas where wealth is a fundamental criterion for admittance as a resident. These party members are generally educated at private schools and attend private colleges. They are not affected by food-rationing schemes, income caps or taxation laws, as the legislation drafted and passed by members of their social group inevitably contains loopholes that effectively shelter their income and render them immune from unpleasant statues that restrict the lives of lower-tier party members and all nonparty citizens.
(The party) leadership recognizes that in return for supporting a seemingly populist agenda, they can obtain all the votes they require to remain in power. Even the most cursory analysis of their actions and attitudes, however, indicates that they are not populists but, in fact, are strong antipopulists who actively despise their voting base. This….is proven by their efforts to reduce public educational systems to a level most grade-school children (in other countries) have surpassed, with the excuse that this curriculum is all that the students can handle. They have made the inner-city population base totally dependent on the government, which they control.
Recently, Gerard Van der Leun posted a quote from Fred on Everything:
Fools say, “If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.” This might be true, or partly true, or sometimes true, or occasionally plausible, if government were benevolent. It isn’t.
The feds—whatever the intention of individuals—are setting up the machinery of a totalitarianism beyond anything yet known on the earth. It falls rapidly into place. You can argue, if you are optimistic enough to make Pollyanna look like a Schopenhaurian gloom-monger, that they would never use such powers. They already do. The only question is how far they will push. What cannot be argued is that they have the powers.
Please do read the whole thing.
I was reminded once again of a quote I pulled off the Geek With A .45’s blog back in 2004 (sadly no longer available from the source, but I’ve still got it) and have repeated here often:
We, who studied the shape and form of the machines of freedom and oppression, have looked around us, and are utterly dumbfounded by what we see.
We see first that the machinery of freedom and Liberty is badly broken. Parts that are supposed to govern and limit each other no longer do so with any reliability.
We examine the creaking and groaning structure, and note that critical timbers have been moved from one place to another, that some parts are entirely missing, and others are no longer recognizable under the wadded layers of spit and duct tape. Other, entirely new subsystems, foreign to the original design, have been added on, bolted at awkward angles.
—
Others pass by without a second look, with no alarm or hue and cry, as if they are blind, as if they don’t understand what they see before their very eyes. We want to shake them, to grasp their heads and turn their faces, shouting, “LOOK! Do you see what this thing is? Do you see how it might be put to use? Do you know what can happen if this thing becomes fully assembled and activated?”
Bill Whittle, interestingly, weighs in on the subject as well in his latest Afterburner:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_XeBRci8k?rel=0]
Jonah Goldberg caught a lot of flak for his 2008 book Liberal Fascism, but they say when you’re catching flak it means you’re over the target.