Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I’m not in favor of replacing the word “liberals” with “leftists.” It is true that much of the criticism we have for the liberals should more fairly be redirected toward dedicated leftists, and in a lot of cases it is true that the real problem is there, with leftism. But not all the criticism, and not all the cases.
There is something we could call, for lack of a better term, a “liberation fallacy.” We have been inundated for the past several decades with a variety of movements to “liberate” women, minorities, or this-or-that designated-oppressed victim-group. And we have become accustomed to an all-but-expected bait-and-switch fake-out of sorts. We see the most vivid evidence of this in what we consider to be “higher education.” “You’re liberated, so don’t listen to anything anybody in authority has to say, at least without questioning it — unless the authority is me, your college professor.” I have never understood how this works. It’s almost like a magic spell from a fairy tale. Familiarity breeds contempt, or something? The kid’s parents are so uncool, if they say it’s sunny outside that must be proof it’s raining. But the prof can decide on their grades, and they see their grades as their gateway to their glorious future, I guess. I dunno. Like I said, I’ve never fully understood.
Doubt all those uncool gassy old people, but believe everything the professor says.
Before that it was in the labor unions. Don’t listen to that boss of yours, he can’t tell you what to do. He’s in “management.” But we’re the union! Men who laugh at the law, tremble in fear at our edicts. We’re the new boss. You’re liberated from those guys over there. Not from us.
Feminism has treated women no differently. Their narrative for half a century has been that women can, or ought to be able to, choose
1. Whether to work or not
2. Whether to live out the sex life of a nun, housewife or whore
3. Whether or not to dress to appeal to the male gaze
4. Their religion/spirituality
And nobody should deign to influence a woman in any way about any of this under any circumstances. But the feminist movement, which illustrates itself as the bringer of all this freedom, so deigns, pretty much constantly and without a second thought. The movement has been constantly pressuring them to work, to flirt, to divorce, to abandon Christianity, and as far as how to make up and dress…well, thanks to the magic of the “fashion industry” it’s gone back and forth on that. Liberated fashion, what is that? You have to buy magazines to find out what it is. Today. It’ll change tomorrow.
But everyone who’s been “liberated” has been subjected to a similar mind-scramble. It’s quite invasive. You might as well peel back their skull and stick an egg beater in there. What’s that like, anyway? Us white males can only guess at it. The liberation-fallacy doesn’t focus its mind-control on us, it just casts us as the bad guys. I don’t have any basis of comparison, but I think I’d prefer it that way. The activists want to blame us for everything but they’re not trying to bamboozle us, gaslight us or confound us. Our opinions aren’t that important to them.
The point is — the above is quite a lot of detail. All of it is accurate. None of it really applies to “leftism.” This is how modern liberalism works. Through a fallacy.
It’s the same practical joke played out over and over again, just like…fishing. Fishing is a joke, the same one applied repeatedly throughout thousands of years. We name liberals after the thing they promise to provide but don’t provide, which is “liberty.” We do this because the liberals want us to do it. Every person participating in communication in English, is a potential recruit. If each participant were similarly susceptible to the practical joke played by the fishermen, the fishermen would have an interest in being represented according to what they purport to provide but are not actually providing, and we would call them “worm givers.” But they play their joke on fish, not people, so that’s why we call them fishermen.
Liberals, like fishermen, do not care if their joke fails on an individual level. Here and there, now and then, a woman may be “liberated” and appreciate the “liberty” she has…and use it to make a choice that the liberals don’t like. She may decide to become a housewife. And the liberals will react with scorn, ridicule, stigma, and a subtext of “Hold up there, we wanted you to have the choice so you could make it the way we want you to make it.” Some women pick up on this, are not bothered by it in the least, and keep on homeschooling. They’re very much like the fish making off with the bait. Liberals being concerned with group dynamics, will just ignore her and go on about their business of recruiting others, just like the fisherman reaching for another worm to put on the hook. It’s a bulk process, concerned with breadth and not depth. That’s why liberal ideas are derailed and devastated with just a little bit of honest inspection.
Liberalism works according to this fallacy: You’re oppressed, you’re put-upon, we’re going to march in the streets and achieve “change” so we can get even with the dirty rotten so-and-sos. This is what was born with the Storming of the Bastille in 1789. It is an indoctrination tool, a sort of on-ramp to the highway of leftism. Leftism, being the superset, incorporates everything else; the moral relativism, the nanny-state nonsense, the big-government tax-and-spend redistribution schemes, the graft, the grift, the thuggery, the corruption. “If you’re friends with us, we’ll just wave all those environmental restrictions and you can go ahead and build.” That’s leftism. They aren’t synonymous.
I like, admire and respect Dennis Prager and everybody else who’s trying to recapture the word “liberal” and restore it to its original meaning. Your intentions are noble. Just a little misguided is all.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[…] House of Eratosthenes discusses liberals vs leftists […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 05/23/2021 @ 06:31