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...
Prof. Sowell, being excellent again.
The fundamental problem of the political Left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.
A never-ending source of grievances for the Left is the fact that some groups are “over-represented” in desirable occupations, institutions, and income brackets, while other groups are “under-represented.”
From all the indignation and outrage about this expressed on the left, you might think that it was impossible that different groups are simply better at different things.
:
Some of the most sweeping and spectacular rhetoric of the Left occurred in 18th-century France, where the very concept of the Left originated in the fact that people with certain views sat on the left side of the National Assembly.The French Revolution was their chance to show what they could do when they got the power they sought. In contrast to what they promised — “liberty, equality, fraternity” — what they actually produced were food shortages, mob violence, and dictatorial powers that included arbitrary executions, extending even to their own leaders, such as Robespierre, who died under the guillotine.
:
If the preconceptions of the Left were correct, central planning by educated elites who had vast amounts of statistical data at their fingertips and expertise readily available, and were backed by the power of government, should have been more successful than market economies where millions of individuals pursued their own individual interests willy-nilly.
It’s just one centuries-long soap opera, in which mortal men grasp for Archimedes’ lever that can move the world, attempting to fill out the occupation of little gods.
When reality shows this isn’t a hot idea, the theory must win and reality must lose: That last attempt didn’t quite succeed because the right people weren’t in charge. And the loyal lefties are immune from the most obvious thought that might follow, “perhaps there is no such thing as ‘the right people’.”
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And the loyal lefties are immune from the most obvious thought that might follow, “perhaps there is no such thing as ‘the right people’.”
And that’s the most frustrating thing, for my money — they themselves are never “the right people.” Almost everything is harder than it looks; even the most basic experience with doing a complex task yourself, or heading up even a small team, pretty quickly reveals that easy fixes and glib theories are almost always wrong. If they ever volunteered to actually do anything themselves, they’d know this.
But they never do. They want unlimited authority to “fix” things, provided it’s in the hands of some demigod who is immune to criticism. Their only “responsibility,” if it even rises to that, is to pull the lever for the pharaoh…. and to demonize anyone who criticizes him based on piddly things like “experience.”
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 08:09Sowell seems to have only a rudimentary grasp of what it means to be on the political left, pointing to the most extreme manifestations to color the whole group. The political left refers to those who advocate greater equality. Sowell calls equality the “central delusion” of the left, again assuming this means the extreme position of perfect equality. In fact, the world was highly stratified before the modern era, and is much less stratified today, and the rise of representative governments has been an important part of this transition.
It’s almost as if he is defending extreme inequality as the “natural order”.
Severian: They want unlimited authority to “fix” things, provided it’s in the hands of some demigod who is immune to criticism.
That’s the definition of extremism. Extremism can occur on the left or the right.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 08:25There just might be “The Right People”. But people don’t live forever, and finding “The Right People” has proven very, very hard. And the wrong people access to the power of “The Right People” gives us mounds of skulls. Why would anyone think Utopia followed by the Holocaust would be better then our current sad bumbling along? So it doesn’t even work from their perspective. Soooo stupid……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 08/12/2013 @ 08:41Extremism can occur on the left or the right.
True. But on the left, extremism is an inevitability.
Let’s say there’s a big corporation. It has a “Mahogany Row” of vice-presidents and senior vice presidents; you can make a crude but fairly accurate generalization that the people who work in offices in this hallway, make decisions that really count, and people who don’t, don’t.
These executives are ninety percent male. That’s some fairly simple math, not open to subjective interpretation. The “left” becomes agitated and lobbies for change, in all sorts of ways, for greater equality. After a few years of this, the hallway becomes…
…sixty percent male. Or, let’s say, 53% male. So the males are ever so slightly over-represented, proportionally…but at the same time…”greater equality” has been achieved.
The agitated lefties would stop there? Really?
When have they ever?
Leftism, as we know it today, is extremism. It has gas pedals everywhere but no brakes.
- mkfreeberg | 08/12/2013 @ 08:55That’s the definition of extremism.
Really? Then by your definition, Lenin and Mao (and Pinochet and Diem, just so we’re “balanced”) aren’t extremists, because they were perfectly happy to dub themselves “the right people” and seize the reins of power.
Reading comprehension ain’t y’all’s strong suit, is it?
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 09:02Robert Mitchell Jr: There just might be “The Right People”. But people don’t live forever, and finding “The Right People” has proven very, very hard.
No individual or small group of individuals can be aware of all the factors that make up the price of bread, or the manufacture of a pencil.
mkfreeberg: But on the left, extremism is an inevitability.
Someone might want to give women the right to vote without wanting to overturn all of society.
mkfreeberg: Or, let’s say, 53% male. So the males are ever so slightly over-represented, proportionally…but at the same time…”greater equality” has been achieved.
Not everyone on the left who sees 90% males in management are going to insist upon absolute equality in numbers. Not everyone on the left is an extremist. What might happen is that, with enough political pressure, changes are made, but support for change decreases as the problem decreases as moderates no longer support the increasingly draconian measures required.
Severian: They want unlimited authority to “fix” things, provided it’s in the hands of some demigod who is immune to criticism.
Zachriel: That’s the definition of extremism. Extremism can occur on the left or the right.
Severian: Really? Then by your definition, Lenin and Mao (and Pinochet and Diem, just so we’re “balanced”) aren’t extremists, because they were perfectly happy to dub themselves “the right people” and seize the reins of power. .
Huh? Lenin and Mao considered themselves “the right people”, and wanted “unlimited authority to ‘fix’ things”.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 09:53Context, baby.
they themselves [i.e. the loyal lefties] are never “the right people.” …. They want unlimited authority to “fix” things, provided it’s in the hands of some demigod who is immune to criticism. Their only “responsibility,” if it even rises to that, is to pull the lever for the pharaoh…. and to demonize anyone who criticizes him based on piddly things like “experience.”
Loyal lefties these days want to invest unlimited, criticism-free power in other people. Which you said is “the definition of extremism.” But: “Lenin and Mao considered themselves “the right people”, and wanted “unlimited authority to ‘fix’ things.”
Ergo, Lenin and Mao are not extremists by your definition.
Normally I’d just put that down to someone reading quickly, and not make an issue of it. But you seem to feel you’re “arguing” here for the edification of others; I think they deserve an illustration of why y’all spend so much time arguing with dictionaries.
Readers, please note: A key part of arguing in good faith is making an attempt to understand what the other party is saying.
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 10:07Severian: Loyal lefties these days want to invest unlimited, criticism-free power in other people. Which you said is “the definition of extremism.”
Extremists want uninhibited power towards advancing their ideological goals. That may or may not mean a single preeminent leader.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 10:15Severian: Readers, please note: A key part of arguing in good faith is making an attempt to understand what the other party is saying.
Absolutely. That’s why we often ask questions.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 10:44Have you ever noticed that they never seem to be concerned about the “underrepresentation” of straight white guys? No boycotts of the NBA on behalf of short white guys. No boycotts of HR departments that are largely women. No complaints about the vanishing number of male elementary school teachers. No boycotts of yoga or zumba studios for insufficient numbers of men teaching classes.
- Duffy | 08/12/2013 @ 10:44Extremists want uninhibited power towards advancing their ideological goals. That may or may not mean a single preeminent leader.
Uh huh. But that’s not what I said, is it? You know, the thing you claim you were responding to.
Context is your friend, kiddos.
Absolutely. That’s why we often ask questions.
Well, thank god the intertubes are free. Your “readers” are getting every penny’s worth.
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 11:08Severian: But that’s not what I said, is it?
You said, “They want unlimited authority to “fix” things, provided it’s in the hands of some demigod who is immune to criticism.” That isn’t a feature exclusively of the left. It’s a common feature of extremism, though.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 11:19Uh huh. I also said some other stuff– “readers,” please note, this is called “context” — that materially alters the meaning of the bit you just quoted. Paging Michael Jackson’s estate; we seem to have a case of copyright infringement.
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 11:36Sorry, Severian, but your point is unclear. You might try to explain it more directly.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 12:10Uh huh. I’ll get right on that.
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 12:21Severian: Uh huh. I’ll get right on that.
Well, think about it. It can help you discover if the point was worthwhile; while finding a good description, can help clarify the idea in your own mind.
- Zachriel | 08/12/2013 @ 12:42Say the fellows who by their own admission can’t identify a point they themselves called clear in under three tries.
- Severian | 08/12/2013 @ 13:18“Extremism can occur on the left or the right.”
Have always loved this argument. Where has Right Extremism occurred? Besides in 13 colonies back in 1776?
Yea, watch out, we’re going to impose extremism and leave y’all alone, free from government oppression. The horror.
Quickly, name a few Right sided extremism that currently interferes with your life like Social Security and the rest of paycheck sucking dependency programs? The burdensome taxes on everything from gas, property/school, estate…you name it? Staggering corporate tax rates…Right extremism? And who can forget the looming Obamacare…those damn Republicans.
And gun laws, and college “free speech zones” and free condoms and contraceptives for teenagers…racial quotas…
Name the equivalent on the Right to Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson.
Name the equivalent on the Right to Mayor Bloomberg and his soda limits and “I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom”.
Should I continue or is the point made?
Extremism on the right!?! Fuck off. Bring it on, this country would be a hell a lot better off.
- tim | 08/13/2013 @ 09:26tim: Where has Right Extremism occurred?
You could start with Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics
If you want something more scholarly, try these.
tim: Yea, watch out, we’re going to impose extremism and leave y’all alone, free from government oppression.
Hmm. You seem to be confusing the left-right continuum with the statist-libertarian continuum. Left wing politics refers to advocacy of equality. Right wing politics supports social hierarchies. Liberalism balances liberty and equality. Conservatism defends traditional institutions.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 11:23http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
Left wing politics refers to advocacy of equality. Right wing politics supports social hierarchies
So when Reagan and Bush supported school voucher programs, that was a “left-wing” initiative they were supporting. The entrenched teachers’ unions who opposed them, were conservative.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 11:32mkfreeberg: So when Reagan and Bush supported school voucher programs, that was a “left-wing” initiative they were supporting. The entrenched teachers’ unions who opposed them, were conservative.
Public education is normally considered left wing because it guarantees everyone an equal educational opportunity. Opponents argue vouchers create a two-tier system; the wealthy use the vouchers to send their children to better schools, leaving the poor in underfunded schools with crumbling infrastructure.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 11:54Opponents argue vouchers create a two-tier system; the wealthy use the vouchers to send their children to better schools, leaving the poor in underfunded schools with crumbling infrastructure.
But…when we create definitions for terms that are supposed to describe a political divide, we should endeavor to come up with definitions that make sense to both sides of it, not just the side that happens to find your sympathy.
Your definitions have that problem; and perhaps as a consequence of that, they are encumbered with the other problem in that they only make sense within a limited term of time. The left-wing revolutionary, not yet in power, portrays himself and imagines himself as a sort of modern “Robin Hood,” fighting an entrenched right-wing aristocracy and the social stratification it has put in place, with “haves” and “have-nots.” That all makes good sense, in the moment in which left-wingers would prefer to live indefinitely: The dark just before the dawn.
In the Obama era, there are real problems. Suddenly, yesterday’s revolutionary radical is the guy in charge, and is forced to campaign, falsely, as if he’s the guy laboring night and day to put the wrongs right — as opposed to the reality of the situation, in which his side won some five or six years ago, and it’s his people who are in fact perpetuating the things that are wrong. So for a definition to work, it has to achieve some measure of agreement on both sides, and it has to make sense throughout all phases of the cycle, not just the left-wing’s favorite arc within that cycle. Your “The resource anyone can edit (so long as the editors like what they do)” definitions fail both of these tests.
A distinction between left and right that gels more harmoniously with real-life events, would address the things that find passion within the left and within the right. I can think of two right off the bat: The free market, and God. In both cases (in fact, with the French Revolution) the right wing tends to embrace fatalism when & where it makes sense to do so: If you are born a King, or if you run a business that is profitable while some other guy runs a business in the same industry that goes broke, well golly, the right-wingers say there are probably some reasons why. A King is King by the Grace of God. Whereas the left says, both those things are injustices and we should start tinkering with them. I see this also works with climate change: Sensible fatalism. The climate is going to do whatever it is going to do, we can hope for the best, but the slope-headed right-wingers think, somehow, planetary climate is outside of man’s direct control (which, not to dredge up an off-topic bunny-trail here, but it is).
Once a left-wing revolutionary becomes a left-wing dictator, your definitions don’t work anymore, because throughout it all the revolutionary remains left-wing, but it’s happened over and over again in history that once his friends become the new aristocrats, he likes “traditional institutions” just fine, and will fight to defend them from newer generations of revolutionaries.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 12:21mkfreeberg: But…when we create definitions for terms that are supposed to describe a political divide, we should endeavor to come up with definitions that make sense to both sides of it, not just the side that happens to find your sympathy.
Words are defined by general usage, not by parochial agendas.
mkfreeberg: The left-wing revolutionary, not yet in power, portrays himself and imagines himself as a sort of modern “Robin Hood,” fighting an entrenched right-wing aristocracy and the social stratification it has put in place, with “haves” and “have-nots.” That all makes good sense, in the moment in which left-wingers would prefer to live indefinitely: The dark just before the dawn.
Yes, it’s the ideological goals that define the revolutionary as left wing.
mkfreeberg: If you are born a King, or if you run a business that is profitable while some other guy runs a business in the same industry that goes broke, well golly, the right-wingers say there are probably some reasons why.
That’s correct. Someone on the political right points to the natural or divine hierarchy.
mkfreeberg: A King is King by the Grace of God. Whereas the left says, both those things are injustices and we should start tinkering with them.
That’s right. The left advocates for increased equality, in the extreme, the destruction of the class system. So far you are in complete accord with standard usage of left-right politics.
mkfreeberg: Once a left-wing revolutionary becomes a left-wing dictator, your definitions don’t work anymore, because throughout it all the revolutionary remains left-wing
If the ideological goals remain the same, then it’s still considered left wing. Consider the Soviet Union, for example. The Soviets continued to advocate for absolute social and economic equality, even as society reorganized itself hierarchically, albeit not on the same class lines.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 12:55The Soviets continued to advocate for absolute social and economic equality, even as society reorganized itself hierarchically, albeit not on the same class lines.
Right. By acting to preserve their new aristocracy, they fell out of your definition of “left wing,” in fact qualified for your definition of “right wing” quite well, even though common sense says they never stopped being left wing. That is why your definition doesn’t work.
In order to come up with a definition that works throughout all arcs of this cycle, we have to take into account the left wing’s underlying and definitional lack of humility. Its proclivity for putting mortals in charge of divine decisions. Its fondness for entrenching the few with power over the many. We would, ultimately, have to borrow some of your definitions of “right,” to achieve better understanding of what motivates the “left.” Equality hasn’t got much to do with it when all’s said & done.
Perhaps something that would work much better, is: Once the “wing” settles on a figurehead, by whatever means, does it use some thin rationale to exempt that person from the movement’s own rules? So George Washington would be a right-wing revolutionary, since he was part of a movement to create, as the phrasing goes, “a nation of laws not of men.” Al Gore would be a left-wing figurehead, since his movement says we all have to stop emitting carbon because we’re killing the planet — but it’s okay for him and his friends to fly around on huge jet planes and live in lavish, enormous mansions. That would work better, I think, the notion that the guy on top should live according to the same rules imposed on the hoi polloi. Seems the left-wing doesn’t try very hard at this.
Hope the Obamas are having a wonderful family vacation, as I write this, by the way…
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 13:37mkfreeberg: Right. By acting to preserve their new aristocracy, they fell out of your definition of “left wing,” in fact qualified for your definition of “right wing” quite well, even though common sense says they never stopped being left wing.
No, the Soviets saw the dictatorship of the proletariat as a stepping stone to communism.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 13:46Stalin ended up with more power and a higher standard of living than the rest of the citizenry.
And he was perfectly cool with that.
The equality/inequality thing doesn’t define “left wing” well. Lack of humility, and lust for special privilege, does that.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 13:49mkfreeberg: The equality/inequality thing doesn’t define “left wing” well.
The ideological goal was communism. Your basically arguing that Marxism is not left wing. That’s just silly.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 13:51Well, they never quite got there. So it’s fair to question if that really was the goal, isn’t it? They had eight decades.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 13:56Morgan,
In this case, it might be easier to say that the guys at the tippy-top don’t conform to any ideology other than power-for-power’s-sake. If you presented an average person with a list of a random dictator’s actions and stripped away the external trappings, he’d be unable to tell if it were Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Saddam, or Mobutu Sese Seko. The “ideology” justifying the secret police, camps, informers, executions, etc. would be different in every case, but the actions are always the same.
“Left” and “right” are useful descriptors of what revolutionary movements say they want, and are ok at describing some of their actions, but those at the top always do only those things that keep them in power (witness supposedly ultra-right Hitler getting very chummy with definitely ultra-left Stalin, and vice versa).
The functional (as opposed to ideological) problem with the modern left, as I see it, is that they don’t see any real difference between public and private. They have no problem forcing people to be equal or, failing that, forcing people to pretend everyone’s equal (the problem of some kids being better at sports than others, for instance, is usually solved by banning sports from the school altogether).
That’s baked into their ideology, of course, but with most lefties I know, it’s a personality tic more than an ideological commitment. They just plain like bossing people around.
- Severian | 08/13/2013 @ 13:58In this case, it might be easier to say that the guys at the tippy-top don’t conform to any ideology other than power-for-power’s-sake.
Kind like Barack Obama’s religion. There are those who say He is not a Christian and He is not a Muslim; He just believes in Barack Obama. Seems Hitler and Pol Pot and Stalin and Castro had the same religion — guy-in-the-mirror-worship religion.
Hope Bo enjoyed his flight on his own special jet plane.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 14:14That’s for sure!
Grand Inquisitor-type personalities are always fundamentally irreligious. If Catholic dogma changed, and Torquemada was faced with either apostasy or unemployment, he’d have turned Lutheran in a heartbeat. So, too, with commie dictators — every blessed one of them invents an “-ism” that revises Marx in such a way to make all their actions are perfectly consistent with the revealed word.
But what difference, at this point, does it make? You can count on one hand the number of people of truly committed lefties who have apostasized, no matter how monstrous and numerous the crimes of their heroes. Historian Eric Hobsbawm — an honest man, in his own twisted way — is on record stating he believes even the millions murdered by Stalin would’ve been worth it had they succeeded in establishing communism.
Forget left or right for a sec. That’s the real litmus test, in my view — if you find yourself saying “yeah, but” about murders, it’s time to rethink some fundamental things in your life.
- Severian | 08/13/2013 @ 14:54mkfreeberg: Well, they never quite got there. So it’s fair to question if that really was the goal, isn’t it? They had eight decades.
Because they justified the means with the end, it led to all sorts of abuses, but communism was the goal.
Severian: The “ideology” justifying the secret police, camps, informers, executions, etc. would be different in every case, but the actions are always the same.
That’s the difference between means and ends, extremism being the ends justifying whatever means. So the Nazis destroyed races, communists destroyed classes.
Severian: if you find yourself saying “yeah, but” about murders, it’s time to rethink some fundamental things in your life.
Agreed.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 15:16That’s the difference between means and ends, extremism being the ends justifying whatever means.
Again with the point-missing! These guys…. oh, these guys. You really do have to learn to read more carefully… though at this point I should expect no better. Anyway, for the benefit of your “readers”: The means are the same — secret police, torture, camps, etc. The ends are also the same — the preservation of power for those at the tippy top.
So the Nazis destroyed races, communists destroyed classes.
Cute. The difference being, of course, that there are still lots of people around — jetting around on Air Force One, even — who think destroying classes is a good thing.
@Morgan: this is exactly what I was getting at about the functional problem of the modern left. They claim dictatorship is bad, and they claim that the Soviet Union was bad, but they still think greater “equality” through coercion is fine. So they equivocate, like our buddies here. Cf here: “The left advocates for increased equality, in the extreme, the destruction of the class system. So far you are in complete accord with standard usage of left-right politics.” When it’s good, it’s “the standard usage of left wing politics”; when it’s bad, it’s “extremism.”
- Severian | 08/13/2013 @ 16:12Severian: The means are the same — secret police, torture, camps, etc. The ends are also the same — the preservation of power for those at the tippy top.
Heh. There is no reasonable definition of left-right that puts Louis XVI on the political left.
Severian: The difference being, of course, that there are still lots of people around — jetting around on Air Force One, even — who think destroying classes is a good thing.
Ignoring whether your statement is factual, that would put him on the political left.
Severian: They claim dictatorship is bad, and they claim that the Soviet Union was bad, but they still think greater “equality” through coercion is fine.
Not everyone on the left is a statist. Some are even anarchists. Communists advocate the eventual creation of a stateless, classless society.
Severian: When it’s good, it’s “the standard usage of left wing politics”; when it’s bad, it’s “extremism.”
It’s not that difficult. Left means advocacy of greater equality. That might mean, for instance, marching for women’s suffrage or lobbying for universal childhood education. It’s a continuum, though, such that on the farthest left, it means absolute or complete social equality. Extremism is the ends used to justify extreme means. The definition has nothing to do with value judgments.
- Zachriel | 08/13/2013 @ 16:33There is no reasonable definition of left-right that puts Louis XVI on the political left.
Not everyone on the left is a statist. Some are even anarchists. Communists advocate the eventual creation of a stateless, classless society.
Aw, darn it all. We would have a simple litmus test — eradication of classes — if only those darn leftists would deliver the things they promise.
Alas, since they don’t even bother to try to deliver the “stateless, classless society,” we have to spot it by characteristic. And, double-alas, the statism/libertarianism thing does seem to work if you consider all of the evidence and all of the available facts. There are anarchists in the lefty movement in America, but they don’t mind becoming statists overnight with some choosy selection of the pet issue. They’re fair-weather friends to the anarchist shtick. Example: Michael Moore, and a single-payer health care plan.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2013 @ 17:26There are anarchists in the lefty movement in America, but they don’t mind becoming statists overnight with some choosy selection of the pet issue.
That’s one thing I’ve never been able to figure out about our leftist friends: How they get over that logical hard place between ends and means. “Advocate for greater equality”? Yes, by all means! Go nuts! But what happens when the haves don’t want to share with the have-nots?
I’ve never once met a leftist who said “gosh, I gave it the ol’ college try, but I can’t persuade anyone to give up their entrenched class privilege. Oh well; I guess I’d best get started on that novel I’ve been meaning to write.”
Meanwhile the right can accomplish its goal — maintaining hierarchy, according to our cephalopod friends — with no state intervention whatsoever. Drop twenty random individuals on a deserted island, and within a week you’ll have the most hierarchical society this side of ancient Egypt. People are like that.
It takes a whole lot of force to make people behave in leftist-approved ways.
- Severian | 08/13/2013 @ 20:36mkfreeberg: We would have a simple litmus test — eradication of classes — if only those darn leftists would deliver the things they promise.
That would be the extreme left only. Someone on the moderate left might advocate for women’s suffrage or universal childhood education, without wanting to do entirely away with class distinctions. Moderates on the left recognize the need for change, but want change that is incremental while maintaining most established traditions and institutions.
Severian: But what happens when the haves don’t want to share with the have-nots?
A simple example is a hippie commune, where people with similar goals establish a community based on shared ownership and lacking rigid leadership. We would say these hippies are on the left, even though they are certainly not statists. Of course, these stateless communities are rarely stable.
Once you accept the necessity of government, all governments tax, and all governments transfer wealth. For instance, in feudalism, the peasants were taxed for the benefit of the nobility. In a modern democracy, elected representatives determine how taxes are to be spent, including usually establishing some sort of economic safety net.
Severian: It takes a whole lot of force to make people behave in leftist-approved ways.
If you consider passing a constitutional amendment enacting women’s suffrage to be “force to make people behave in leftist-approved ways”, then you’re right! A simple example of direct force is the American Revolution which eliminated formal class distinctions. In Britain, they maintained their formal class structure, including the monarchy, but slowly eroded its importance through revolution and law.
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 03:36That would be the extreme left only. Someone on the moderate left might advocate for women’s suffrage or universal childhood education, without wanting to do entirely away with class distinctions. Moderates on the left recognize the need for change, but want change that is incremental while maintaining most established traditions and institutions.
And the first step of this incremental change toward a more egalitarian society…is to elect a guy who is actually a deity. So the very first step toward a more equal society, is away from equality. Therefore, the moderate left, along with the extreme left, has a penchant for delivering the opposite of what they promise.
We cannot define “left” by way of an ambition to get rid of inequality. To do so is to uncritically believe something that is, essentially, a sales brochure; a sales brochure not believed by the salesmen who sell it, nor by the customers who buy it. The smart ones, the dumb ones, anywhere in between. None of them put any faith in this, so why should anybody else.
The left is not about eradicating class distinctions. It is about preserving them, creating new ones, and pushing those class layers far apart; allowing privileges to some classes and denying them to others. It’s always been that way.
- mkfreeberg | 08/14/2013 @ 04:40In fact, it occurs to me, I’ve known many women you’re trying to describe with this “moderate left” stuff who’ve had to figure out how, and to what extent, they support what was back in the day called “Womens’ Lib.” My mother was in that crowd. Yes to the equal-pay-for-equal-work thing, but when it comes to the “man-bashing” as she called it, which defines feminism today, her attitude was no, hell no, full stop. No support from her toward all this propaganda that defines men as the problem.
There are millions of women, I daresay, who are in the same boat. They go along with the fair and equal treatment aspect of it, but they’ll be sure and jump off the wagon before it gets to the militant attitude and the man-bashing.
According to your definition, they would be “moderate left.” This would surely come as news to all of them. Common sense tells us it is the anger and the hate that defines “left,” not the desire for people to be treated equally. Across many other issues, there are lots of people on the right who want this, and do a much better job than people on the left at fulfilling the promise.
When you’re motivated by hate, and a desire to destroy, you can’t maintain a desire that people be treated equally. The hate gets in the way.
- mkfreeberg | 08/14/2013 @ 04:48You could start with Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics
Zachriel, please tell me you’re not this idiotic. If it’s on Wiki it must be true. Yeah, and I’m a French male model.
Wiki-
“Far right politics commonly involves support for social inequality and social hierarchy, elements of social conservatism and opposition to most forms of liberalism and socialism. Both terms are also used to describe Nazi and fascist movements, and other groups who hold extreme nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, racist, religious fundamentalist or reactionary views.[1] The most extreme right-wing movements have pursued oppression and genocide against groups of people on the basis of their alleged inferiority.”
To equate Facism, Nazis, racism and genocide with Right sided politics is beyond laughable. But certainly the norm for anyone on the Left.
The political spectrum is quite simple, yet deliberately those on the Left would like to confuse the issue. Much like rewriting history when is comes to slavery and civil rights. Yeah, I’m sure Wiki has that all correct too.
Here goes –
Extreme Right = Anarchy, no government
Hard Right = Libertarian, extremely limited government, strict interpretation of the constitution
Right = Republicans, limited government based on the constitution
Left = Democrats circa 1940’s, 50’s & ‘60’s, government involvement based on social needs
Hard Left = Liberals/Progressives, extreme government involvement
Extreme Left = Socialist, Communist and… wait for it…Facism.
From you wonderful world of Wiki –
“Fascists seek to unify their nation through a totalitarian state that promotes the mass mobilization of the national community”
Yeah, those right wingers, trying to impose a totalitarian state through…limited government. Just dumb shit right there.
“Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation and asserts that stronger nations have the right to obtain land and resources by displacing weaker nations.”
Again…really…I need to go on?
I stand correct. Zachriel, there are things we think we know and things we think we don’t know. I’ll let you figure it out, but I’m not hopeful…for change.
- tim | 08/14/2013 @ 07:43mkfreeberg: And the first step of this incremental change toward a more egalitarian society…is to elect a guy who is actually a deity.
Heh. It’s a kid praying for the president.
mkfreeberg: The left is not about eradicating class distinctions. It is about preserving them, creating new ones, and pushing those class layers far apart; allowing privileges to some classes and denying them to others. It’s always been that way.
Sure, and Louis XVI was a flaming leftist.
mkfreeberg: There are millions of women, I daresay, who are in the same boat. They go along with the fair and equal treatment aspect of it, but they’ll be sure and jump off the wagon before it gets to the militant attitude and the man-bashing.
That’s right. So someone who may be moderate left with regards to say, women’s rights, does not imply they agree with the far left in terms of eliminating all class distinctions.
mkfreeberg: According to your definition, they would be “moderate left.”
They would be considered moderate left today on the one issue, though a century ago, they were considered radical. The center has moved left.
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 09:16According to your definition, they would be “moderate left.” This would surely come as news to all of them.
Well, to be fair, a lot of what the cephalopods say comes as news to lots of people. I “learn” a lot every time they post something, that’s for sure!
Extremely selective interpretation of historical data is one of the things that makes leftism go. You’ll notice the cuttlefish going on about women voting — as if that were accomplished entirely without violence or, more importantly, if that were the end of the whole deal. Yep, the 19th amendment passed — and then everybody hung up their cleats and hit the showers. Score one for progress.
Deliberate conflation of terms is another. As we’ve already seen with them so many, many, many times, they’ll pretend that different things are the same if it suits them, or that similar things are different. Cf. above when I asked them “what happens when the haves don’t want to share with the have nots,” and they replied with some nonsense about a hippie commune. Which, you know, would be great with me — liberals can all go love the world in yurts in a national park somewhere and let the rest of us get on with our lives — but darn it, they just don’t.
The fundamental leftist impulse is control. They often try to broaden their coalition by simply informing people “you are on the moderate left” (and leaving unvoiced the corollary: “and therefore, you must believe x, y, and z”). Your mom being informed she’s on the “moderate left” is just the kinder, gentler rhetorical flipside of Sarah Palin, Amity Shlaes, Ann Coulter, et al being informed they’re “not real women.”
In every case, it’s the left defining others — what they are, and therefore how they must think and act.
- Severian | 08/14/2013 @ 09:27It’s a kid praying for the president.
Not “for.” To. To the president.
They would be considered moderate left today on the one issue, though a century ago, they were considered radical. The center has moved left.
Evidently not. They consider themselves, today, to be on the right. Their detractors, chafing with resentment that they wouldn’t stay on the bandwagon as it careened into the man-bashing turf, would (and do) criticize them for being extremely conservative. Overall, it seems y’all are for the most part the only ones anywhere who would call these women “moderate left.”
So your definitions are good — for talking amongst yourselves only. Which means they aren’t good.
In every case, it’s the left defining others — what they are, and therefore how they must think and act.
Right. Pigeonholing. It’s how they show the rest of us what sophisticated, detailed, nuanced thinkers they are. They pigeonhole people.
But their disagreement with me, here, is even simpler: They are assessing the goal of leftist movements according to the promises. I am assessing the same goals according to the delivery. According to which…after all’s said & done, they’re not that different from Louis XVI. Same flashy digs, fancy wardrobe, cushy leisure activities…bitchy wife…
- mkfreeberg | 08/14/2013 @ 09:36Severian: “what happens when the haves don’t want to share with the have nots,” and they replied with some nonsense about a hippie commune.
We answered your question. It depends on their views of government. On the anarchistic side, some on the left have attempted to create separate state-less societies. Most try to pass laws through the legislative process. And some try to impose it by a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Severian: The fundamental leftist impulse is control.
Are hippies living in a commune with no structured leadership considered to be on the left? Was Louis XVI a flaming leftist?
mkfreeberg: Not “for.” To. To the president.
Seriously. He’s just a kid.
mkfreeberg: Evidently not. They consider themselves, today, to be on the right.
The equal pay for equal work movement is a movement on the left. In many countries, there are still legal barriers to equal participation of women in society.
mkfreeberg: According to which…after all’s said & done, they’re not that different from Louis XVI.
Ah, so Louis XVI was a leftie?
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 09:50they’re not that different from Louis XVI. Same flashy digs, fancy wardrobe, cushy leisure activities…bitchy wife…
I’m entirely with you. Said so, in fact… which the cuttlefish deliberately (and very ham-handedly) took to mean I was asserting, as a matter of historical fact, that Louis XVI was on the left.
People at the tippy-top don’t care about left or right. They care about power. Mao had a better literary style than most tinpot dictators, but read more than a few sentences of his stuff and you see that Maoism = Leninism = Juche = The Motorcycle Diaries = whatever crap the Hoxhas and Ceaucescus of the world put out to justify their regimes. It’s the same ol’ Divine Right of Kings, with Karl Marx pinch hitting for Jehovah.
If you want to talk about honest-to-god small-p progress, it’d be there — the idea that God doesn’t sanction any particular social order, but gives rights to individuals. There is no “delivery” — we fallible creatures are allowed (or damned) to sort out the details of social organization as best we can, given our very limited understanding.
But that’s an idea that nowadays is found only on the political right. The left — as is so often the case — is obsessed with doing what they accuse their opponents with doing: Pursuing a teleology. The world should / must work a certain way, and if it doesn’t — if, in fact, the delivery is 180 degrees from the promises — then it just shows we haven’t done enough of what we’ve been doing. The same promises of equality that led to secret police and labor camps when turned to 6 will bring utopia when cranked to 11.
Or not. But either way, they’re oh so much smarter, more enlightened, just plain Better Than You.
- Severian | 08/14/2013 @ 10:00[…] ERATOSTHENES– Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?; An important part of liberalism, as we know it today, is the […]
- Steynian 486rd | Free Canuckistan! | 08/14/2013 @ 10:14Severian: took to mean I was asserting, as a matter of historical fact, that Louis XVI was on the left.
You didn’t answer the questions. Are hippies living in a commune with no structured leadership considered to be on the left? Is Louis XVI considered a leftist? Or are you saying the distinction left-right is incoherent?
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 10:19Seriously. He’s just a kid.
Try to understand: These are two different things, you said he was praying for the president, but if you listen to his words he’s praying to the president. Two different words, two different meanings.
And since, in his obeisance before Obama’s holy visage he isn’t at all different from millions of adults who are of a common mind, I’m afraid I’m not following how the “he’s a kid” thing matters. Leftists revere their leaders in a way that rightists do not revere theirs. It is fair to perceive this as an attribute of modern leftism. Accurate, too.
The equal pay for equal work movement is a movement on the left.
It’s a selling point of the left. But the modern left does not stop there. Nor does it have a good track record of delivering on the promise…
Ah, so Louis XVI was a leftie?
Not back in the day. But as y’all pointed out, these positions are in motion. As far as political objectives and the relationship between the figurehead and followers, can you describe some meaningful differences between Louis and Obama?
- mkfreeberg | 08/14/2013 @ 10:25mkfreeberg: Not back in the day.
That’s right. Louis XVI was on the political right.
mkfreeberg: But as y’all pointed out, these positions are on motion.
That’s right. While at that time an absolute monarchy had substantial political support, today it would be considered reactionary, or far right. The center has moved left.
mkfreeberg: As far as political objectives and the relationship between the figurehead and followers, can you describe some meaningful differences between Louis and Obama?
Louis inherited absolute power from his grandfather, while Obama was elected by a majority of voters to a constitutionally limited presidency.
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 10:33Louis inherited absolute power from his grandfather, while Obama was elected by a majority of voters to a constitutionally limited presidency.
You didn’t answer the question.
Do you mean to say, Obama’s supporters envision Him as a constitutionally limited president?
- mkfreeberg | 08/14/2013 @ 10:37Two different words, two different meanings.
Yup. And the cuttlefish will continue to refuse to grok to that, because it messes with their preconceptions — you know, like real scientists do.
E.g. here:
Or are you saying the distinction left-right is incoherent?
Yes. That is exactly, explicitly what I am saying, in those words, when — pay attention, this is crucial — applied to people at the tippy-top. Your first clue might’ve been here, where I wrote
Another clue came later in that same comment, when I wrote:
Didja catch that? If not, go read the bolded part again. If that still doesn’t do it, check here:
There’s three instances of me saying, in almost those exact words, that “the distinction left-right is incoherent” for people at the tippy-top.
There’s no way even the most casual reader could miss that. Deliberately misunderstanding a statement when it’s contrary to Ingsoc is classic crimestop. But I’m sure Big Brother wasn’t really on the left. Or something. It’s always something.
- Severian | 08/14/2013 @ 10:44mkfreeberg: You didn’t answer the question.
We answered in part.
mkfreeberg: As far as political objectives and the relationship between the figurehead and followers, can you describe some meaningful differences between Louis and Obama?
Relationship between the leader and followers: Louis inherited absolute power from his grandfather; Obama was elected by a majority of voters to a constitutionally limited presidency.
Political objectives: Obama, universal healthcare, clean energy, economic growth; King Louis XVI, maintain the absolute monarchy.
mkfreeberg: Do you mean to say, Obama’s supporters envision Him as a constitutionally limited president?
The vast majority do, of course.
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 10:50tim: If it’s on Wiki it must be true.
Um, no. We did provide you additional citations.
tim: To equate Facism, Nazis, racism and genocide with Right sided politics is beyond laughable.
Not an argument. The extreme right believes in absolute inequality, which means they think that some racial groups are inferior, and often need to be eliminated.
tim: Extreme Right = Anarchy, no government
Hard Right = Libertarian, extremely limited government, strict interpretation of the constitution
Right = Republicans, limited government based on the constitution
Left = Democrats circa 1940′s, 50’s & ‘60’s, government involvement based on social needs
Hard Left = Liberals/Progressives, extreme government involvement
Extreme Left = Socialist, Communist and… wait for it…Facism.
Fascism has been considered on the right since the 1940s, and most scholars still place it there. So, King Louis XVI was, what? The Hard Left or the Extreme Left?
tim: Yeah, those right wingers, trying to impose a totalitarian state through…limited government.
You’re conflating the extreme right with the political right, and the statism-libertarian continuum with the left-right continuum. Try to place King Louis XVI according to your definition.
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 10:57Severian: That is exactly, explicitly what I am saying, in those words, when — pay attention, this is crucial — applied to people at the tippy-top.
So we can’t say anything about King Louis XVI with regards to the left-right continuum. What about his supporters?
- Zachriel | 08/14/2013 @ 11:01So we can’t say anything about King Louis XVI with regards to the left-right continuum. What about his supporters?
What, at this point, does it matter? You all have demonstrated — yet again — that clear statements in plain English will be interpreted in whatever fashion you see fit, in order to advance whatever argument you think you’re making.
You were presented with three clear statements of the position “ideology does not matter for those at the tippy-top.”
In the first instance, you behaved as if I were writing about “extremism:”
When I restated the point — that there is no meaningful distinction between left and right at the very top — you acted as if I were claiming Louis XVI was a lefty:
When I referenced this same, clear point — that there is no meaningful distinction between left and right for people at the top — yet again, you first accused me of not answering the question, and then finally pseudo-asked for clarification
And now we’re supposed to discuss his supporters. Um…. yeah. Pass.
- Severian | 08/14/2013 @ 11:21[…] have raised the point about the feminist movement, and the women who support it only insofar as the push for equal pay. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/14/2013 @ 11:30Zachriel: So we can’t say anything about King Louis XVI with regards to the left-right continuum. What about his supporters?
Severian: You were presented with three clear statements of the position “ideology does not matter for those at the tippy-top.”
Yes, which seems contrary to common usage. Most everyone places Mao, for instance, on the extreme political left.
In any case, *given your position*, we asked about Louis XVI’s supporters. Even though you made claims about a group you called “lefties”, you didn’t answer—or rather, you won’t answer—, questions about what constitutes the group, and why your usage seems to diverge from common usage.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 06:41and why your usage seems to diverge from
commonour usage.FTFY.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 07:12mkfreeberg: FTFY.
That’s ironic as you ‘defined’ liberalism as those who “seek to create or preserve things that destroy, and destroy things that create or preserve”. That obviously doesn’t comport with how most people use the term, certainly not what self-identified liberals say they “seek”.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 08:26That obviously doesn’t comport with how most people use the term, certainly not what self-identified liberals say they “seek”.
That’s okay; after all, your definitions don’t “comport with how most people use the term.” Nor do I see you polling anyone to make sure that they do. Nor do I think that’s how it should work.
We should, instead, look at what these movements are practicing in reality. America is so deeply divided right now, that given the contents of a new initiative it is relatively easy to predict which side must have come up with it. That is a source of definitional strength, the power to predict.
My definitions comport well with that. Yours comport well with books that were written a long time ago. If we want to keep repeating what was written in books a long time ago, your definitions are the better ones to use. But that isn’t what we’re trying to do.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 08:30mkfreeberg: That is a source of definitional strength, the power to predict.
Definitions have to do with what people mean when they use the terms, not their ultimate consequences. George Wallace calls supporters of the Civil Rights Act, such as Martin Luther King, liberals. John Kennedy defines himself as a liberal.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 08:45Definitions have to do with what people mean when they use the terms, not their ultimate consequences.
What people mean when they use the terms, is much closer to my definitions, than to yours.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 08:48mkfreeberg: What people mean when they use the terms, is much closer to my definitions, than to yours.
Perhaps in your echochamber. Try reading Kennedy’s speech and tell us how that comports with your use of the term.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 09:01This is getting so extremely meta.
Even though you made claims about a group you called “lefties”, you didn’t answer—or rather, you won’t answer—, questions
The only questions you ask (“Are hippies living in a commune with no structured leadership considered to be on the left? Was Louis XVI a flaming leftist?”) flow from a demonstrably obtuse misreading — make that, several different demonstrably obtuse misreadings — of a very simple statement.
Which you then use in an attempt to lecture me about “common usage.”
How odd. Seems to me, your argument is with Mirriam-Webst….
Hey, waitaminit! Repeats the same talking points over and over… deliberate misunderstanding of opponents’ positions…. argues with dictionaries… President Obama, is that you? It’s the middle of the morning on a weekday; shouldn’t you be on the back nine by now?
- Severian | 08/15/2013 @ 09:32Severian,
We asked whether King Louis XVI’s supporters could be considered as being on the political left or right.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 09:45Try reading Kennedy’s speech and tell us how that comports with your use of the term.
You mean JFK? He hasn’t had anything to say about it for a very, very long time. My mistake, I guess, when I saw you say “how most people use the term” I thought you were talking about present tense.
Why are you quoting from these people whose ideological leanings are impure, and subject to legitimate question on both sides? How come we can’t look to people and causes that are unquestionably left-wing and right-wing? I came up with the example of Affirmative Action, I think that was a pretty good one, since there aren’t many people who would say AA is a right-wing initiative.
Is that what you’re trying to suggest?
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 09:51mkfreeberg: You mean JFK? He hasn’t had anything to say about it for a very, very long time.
Are you saying that liberal today means exactly the opposite of what it did then? Seriously. And that people who self-identify as liberals “seek to create or preserve things that destroy, and destroy things that create or preserve”. That’s just silly.
mkfreeberg: I came up with the example of Affirmative Action, I think that was a pretty good one, since there aren’t many people who would say AA is a right-wing initiative.
You know very well that the purpose of affirmative action is to compensate for past inequality. You would have to argue that Martin Luther King was against equality because he supported affirmative action.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 10:07You know very well that the purpose of affirmative action is to compensate for past inequality. You would have to argue that Martin Luther King was against equality because he supported affirmative action.
That is why sensible parents tell their children two wrongs don’t make a right. There is a lot of wisdom in that.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 10:30mkfreeberg: That is why sensible parents tell their children two wrongs don’t make a right.
Irrelevant to the intended purpose, which is to equalize opportunity.
mkfreeberg: There is a lot of wisdom in that.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 10:37Irrelevant to the intended purpose, which is to equalize opportunity.
Equality is irrelevant to equality?
For it is obvious that if a man is entering the starting line in a race 300 years after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Yup. If MLK lived, he would have seen his mistake, and quickly.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 10:43mkfreeberg: Equality is irrelevant to equality?
Irrelevant to the intended purpose. A communist may want equality. The pursuit may lead to exactly the opposite result, but we still classify communists on the left because that is their ideology.
mkfreeberg: If MLK lived, he would have seen his mistake, and quickly.
Perhaps. Nonetheless, he supported affirmative action. He did so because he believed it would lead to great equality.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 10:47Irrelevant to the intended purpose. A communist may want equality. The pursuit may lead to exactly the opposite result, but we still classify communists on the left because that is their ideology.
The communist doesn’t want that.
When you want to reward one class and punish another, the lust for inequality is in the desire. It is buried way down, in the Id.
Equality is nothing but a false sales-brochure selling-point. It is a mistake to recognize that as a true objective, let alone build a definition around it.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 10:49mkfreeberg: The communist doesn’t want that.
The vast majority certainly do. And in populations still suffering under the vestiges of feudalism, it has been a very influential philosophy.
By the way, are you claiming that Martin Luther King advocated for inequality due to his support of affirmative action? You never did answer.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 10:55The vast majority certainly do.
If they wanted that, they would notice the result of these policies is inequality — and then they’d do something about it. This is why you can’t sanity check definitions of motives of insane things. What was the definition of insanity again?
Here, let’s try this. Introduce a bill requiring member of Congress to use ObamaCare. Stand back and watch the proud self-identifying “liberal left” politicians line up to support that.
As has been repeatedly explained to you now, this is not an issue with wanting one thing, and supporting policies that repeatedly culminate in the opposite. This is an issue with wanting that opposite, and lying to new recruits about what the true objective is.
By the way, are you claiming that Martin Luther King advocated for inequality due to his support of affirmative action? You never did answer.
As I have repeatedly explained, MLK made a mistake. Which, if he’d had the opportunity to stick around and see it play out a few times, he would have realized. It would be silly to assert that the racial strife that has been perpetuated as a result of Affirmative Action policies, were within his true intent.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 11:08mkfreeberg: If they wanted that, they would notice the result of these policies is inequality — and then they’d do something about it.
Marxism says there’s a historical process, including revolution, a dictatorship of the proletariat, and socialism.
mkfreeberg: This is why you can’t sanity check definitions of motives of insane things.
It doesn’t matter if it’s irrational or impractical. If someone thinks that revolution will lead to a perfect classless, moneyless and stateless social order, then they are communists. They are on the extreme political left.
mkfreeberg: Introduce a bill requiring member of Congress to use ObamaCare.
Congress already has healthcare. Imperfect as it may be, Obamacare is intended to extend healthcare to millions of new people.
mkfreeberg: As I have repeatedly explained, MLK made a mistake.
The question is whether his support of affirmative action meant he was supporting inequality, or was a misguided attempt to equalized the playing field. It’s clear what your answer is, but as usual, you can’t bring yourself to say the words. King thought that affirmative action was necessary in order to achieve greater equality.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 11:19Marxism says there’s a historical process, including revolution, a dictatorship of the proletariat, and socialism.
It doesn’t matter if it’s irrational or impractical. If someone thinks that revolution will lead to a perfect classless, moneyless and stateless social order, then they are communists. They are on the extreme political left.
And, it hasn’t worked. If they really wanted equality, they’d find out what the flaw is in the nineteenth-century design, and then work out the kinks before trying it again.
As has been repeatedly explained to you, I am not accepting the statement of intent and then taking issue with the ultimate results. I am disagreeing about the intent. You cannot embrace equality while being motivated by resentment.
Congress already has healthcare. Imperfect as it may be, Obamacare is intended to extend healthcare to millions of new people.
Please re-read, this time with an effort toward not missing the point, and try again.
The question is whether his support of affirmative action meant he was supporting inequality, or was a misguided attempt to equalized the playing field. It’s clear what your answer is, but as usual, you can’t bring yourself to say the words. King thought that affirmative action was necessary in order to achieve greater equality.
What are these words I’m supposed to be saying? Do you mean to confess that you can’t discuss such matters with someone unless they’re under your control? Your arguments are that weak?
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 11:30mkfreeberg: And, it hasn’t worked.
True enough.
mkfreeberg: If they really wanted equality, they’d find out what the flaw is in the nineteenth-century design, and then work out the kinks before trying it again.
For a long time, they bought into the historical progressive concept, meaning they couldn’t expect meaningful results. By countenancing the ends justify the means, they enabled some of the worst aspects of government. Eventually, the Russians tempered, then overthrew communism. China has been trying to work around the problem.
mkfreeberg: You cannot embrace equality while being motivated by resentment.
Sorry, but that’s not true as a political matter. You certainly can try to remove the aristocracy and divide their monopolies, as part of an advocacy of greater equality.
mkfreeberg: What are these words I’m supposed to be saying?
Try to answer the question in your own words. Did King advocate affirmative action in order to create equality or inequality?
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 11:55Sorry, but that’s not true as a political matter.
If by “not true,” what you really mean is “true,” then you’re correct.
Try to answer the question in your own words. Did King advocate affirmative action in order to create equality or inequality?
I really can’t say. We can speculate on, for example, Jesse Jackson’s motives since we’ve seen him out in public view for decades and decades, and it’s become embarrassingly obvious that he counts on continued inter-racial rancor to secure his livelihood. I’d like to think better of MLK’s motives. But he was assassinated before we could make a good determination of that. Not seeing how it’s on-topic, anyway.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 11:59mkfreeberg: If by “not true,” what you really mean is “true,” then you’re correct.
French revolutionaries advocated greater equality. They resented the aristocracy and saw them as enemies of equality.
mkfreeberg: I really can’t say.
Sure you can, because he stated his position.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 12:08French revolutionaries advocated greater equality. They resented the aristocracy and saw them as enemies of equality.
As has been repeatedly explained to you, I am not accepting the statement of intent and then taking issue with the ultimate results. I am disagreeing about the intent. You cannot embrace equality while being motivated by resentment.
Sure you can, because he stated his position.
We can’t say how quickly he would have seen his mistake. As I have said before, he was a reasonably sharp guy, so I don’t think it would have taken long. And I’m inclined to believe he would have stuck to his original knitting (“not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”) better than Jesse Jackson has, because he had better quality of character. That part of it is kind of an easy call.
But when you’re pushing for inequality, you’re pushing for inequality. It becomes kind of a “Law of Identity” thing; not much to argue about there. Your position seems to be that a thing is the opposite of what it is, which is something that fails pretty much automatically.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 12:14mkfreeberg: I am not accepting the statement of intent and then taking issue with the ultimate results.
You don’t think the multitude of peasants rising up against the French aristocracy under the banner of equality were hoping for a more equal society?
mkfreeberg: We can’t say how quickly he would have seen his mistake.
Mistake? That would imply he was advocating affirmative action in order to create greater equality (though it would go awry).
mkfreeberg: But when you’re pushing for inequality, you’re pushing for inequality.
That would imply he was advocating affirmative action in order to create greater inequality, that inequality was his intention.
This is a typical example of your black-and-white thinking. Turns out that there are shades of grays in the world. For instance, a republic is a more equitable distribution of power than an absolute monarchy, but still entails inequalities and corruption. You won’t even read King’s words carefully enough to understand his view. “On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.“
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 12:31You don’t think the multitude of peasants rising up against the French aristocracy under the banner of equality were hoping for a more equal society?
I think they were motivated by resentment. Perhaps that was just, but it is an impossibility to be truly seeking equality while being motivated by resentment.
Perhaps the creators of your definitions would have done well to ask right-leaning people, in addition to left-leaning people, about visions and motivations. Then the definition that ended up being written down, would have been more balanced and better informed.
Mistake? That would imply he was advocating affirmative action in order to create greater equality (though it would go awry).
I have already explained to you that I can’t speculate on his motives, or to what degree his judgment may have been seduced. There is a reason why parents don’t go for the tit-for-tat approach, and somehow, although being a father himself, King wasn’t up on this. At any rate, we see from the consequences the wisdom of the “two wrongs don’t make a right” dictum.
That would imply he was advocating affirmative action in order to create greater inequality, that inequality was his intention.
We know that Affirmative Action is inequality, because it is unequal treatment. As has been explained to you already, a thing is whatever it is; it is not the opposite of what it is.
This is a typical example of your black-and-white thinking. Turns out that there are shades of grays in the world.
You keep saying “turns out…” What has turned out, is that there is something to the black-and-white thinking after all. Affirmative Action is unequal treatment. It results in greater inter-racial strife, greater rancor, greater disharmony…and the fulfillment of Thing I Know #52.
So maybe, it turns out, there are not shades of gray after all. And a thing is whatever it is; not its opposite.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 12:50mkfreeberg: I think they were motivated by resentment. Perhaps that was just, but it is an impossibility to be truly seeking equality while being motivated by resentment.
Impossible he says! So if a woman resents being paid less than a man for the same work, and then acts to change the situation for herself and other women, she is not fighting for greater equality. That makes no sense.
mkfreeberg: Perhaps the creators of your definitions would have done well to ask right-leaning people, in addition to left-leaning people, about visions and motivations. Then the definition that ended up being written down, would have been more balanced and better informed.
Heh. ” Liberals seek to create or preserve things that destroy, and destroy things that create or preserve”. Balanced and informed!
mkfreeberg: I have already explained to you that I can’t speculate on his motives, or to what degree his judgment may have been seduced.
Well, let’s take a look at what he said.
King acknowledges, then explicitly rejects your view. He says that if someone has been kept back, it’s reasonable that there should be some adjustment to make the race fair.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 13:01Impossible he says! So if a woman resents being paid less than a man for the same work, and then acts to change the situation for herself and other women, she is not fighting for greater equality. That makes no sense.
It makes sense of you consider the possibility that perhaps, at present or in the future, men can be short-changed by other factors, or by the reforms put in place. Is your resentful-woman going to dial it back when she finds out mens’ enrollment in colleges has been dwindling, and is expected to continue dwindling? “Turns out” that she most likely will not; a bit of inequality in the other direction, serves those rotten so-and-so’s right. Grrr. That’s the effect of resentment on human psychology, and you’re being a tad silly trying to deny it. So, no, you can’t really advocate for equality when resentment is what motivates you. The guillotines coming out in the French Revolution proved that, didn’t they?
Heh. ” Liberals seek to create or preserve things that destroy, and destroy things that create or preserve”. Balanced and informed!
Yup, I observed patterns and trends, wrote down what I saw…the effect of accumulating and pondering information. You don’t like it, so you’re trying to heckle it out of existence, feeling much smarter when you get rid of the undesirable information. The less you know, the smarter you feel, huh.
King acknowledges, then explicitly rejects your view.
And then, subsequent history counsels that perhaps he should not have rejected it.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 13:10mkfreeberg: Is your resentful-woman going to dial it back when …
That’s irrelevant. You claimed it was impossible to seek equality while being motivated by resentment. Blacks who resented Jim Crow fought for equality. Americans who resented the King George III fought for equality.
mkfreeberg: Yup, I observed patterns and trends, wrote down what I saw…the effect of accumulating and pondering information.
Millions of Americans self-identify as liberals. To claim that they “seek to create or preserve things that destroy, and destroy things that create or preserve” is not a tenable position. Clearly Americans who self-identify as liberals want what is best, even if you think they are misguided.
mkfreeberg: And then, subsequent history counsels that perhaps he should not have rejected it.
Good. Glad that’s settled. King advocated affirmative action to create greater equality, even if you find that view misguided.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 13:43I think you’ve got a typing impediment, of sorts: “We wish you would quit noticing that” comes out as “that’s irrelevant.”
Which comes off looking silly, since the issue is whether you can seek out equality while being motivated by resentment. And obviously it isn’t possible, or if it is, it isn’t very often done. So the point is not at all irrelevant.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 15:31King advocated affirmative action to create greater equality…
Glad that’s settled. To make your argument salable, we have to pretend a thing is the opposite of itself. “Create greater equality,” supposedly, is something we achieve by treating people unequally.
It’s like watching that Daffy Duck cartoon short, “Turn on the radio, I want to fly a kite!!”
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 15:32mkfreeberg: “Create greater equality,” supposedly, is something we achieve by treating people unequally.
So you’re saying Martin Luther King Jr. advocated affirmative action because he wanted to promote inequality?
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 15:44In this context, it might be fun to recall Hubert Humphrey offering to eat the pages of the 1964 Civil Rights Act if it led to quotas. I’m sure that Humphrey, as a a principled man of the left, sparked up the ol’ barbecue grill not long after.
- Severian | 08/15/2013 @ 15:44Are you saying, since you’re the one insisting that “King advocated affirmative action to create greater equality,” that equality is identical to inequality?
Remember: If your argument relies on a thing being treated as the opposite of itself, it automatically fails. We’re very close to a check-and-mate here.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 16:15mkfreeberg: Are you saying …
No, we’re trying to understand your position. When King advocated affirmative action, did he intend this to increase equality or decrease equality?
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 16:28As has already been explained to you repeatedly now, I cannot definitively say and it doesn’t seem to be relevant to the discussion in any way.
What is relevant to the discussion is that inequality is the opposite of equality.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 17:00You introduced affirmative action, which dates to the Civil Rights Act, as supported by King. His opinion expresses the basic concept. If one man is bound in chains for 300 years then it is unreasonable to expect a fair outcome.
In any case, you have been able to answer questions about your positions, as if they’ll crack under scrutiny.
mkfreeberg: What is relevant to the discussion is that inequality is the opposite of inequality.
Says the one who introduced a continuous measure on one dimension for inequality, the Gini index.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 17:54No, inequality is the opposite of equality. Y’all seem to be having a problem with this.
So let me get this straight. A few years before he became assassinated, as in, dead, a guy got hoodwinked into a bit of liberal propaganda that is the purest nonsense, in that it insists a thing is the opposite of itself — we need to “create equality” by treating people unequally.
You’re trying to eke out some sort of victory here, swaggering like the pigeon on the chessboard, because I can’t/won’t tell you what was in the dead guy’s head when he fell for this. Meanwhile, it seems your argument depends on pretending a thing is identical to the opposite of itself.
Check and mate. I’m right about that, right?
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 18:30So now you’re saying King thought he was promoting equality by supporting affirmative action, but was hoodwinked.
In addition, you are saying equality-inequality is a binary quality, right after you said it was a continuum.
- Zachriel | 08/15/2013 @ 18:36As I have already stated, I cannot comment what was in the dead guy’s head.
Also, to the best I can recollect, I didn’t make comments about whether equality/inequality is a continuum or a binary quality. I don’t see how it very much matters. Light/dark is a continuum too, and yet the two characteristics are opposites, just as much as they would be if that were a binary quality.
You seem to have learned some debate/discussion techniques from some academy or other resource that doesn’t know what it’s doing: Confronted with the indisputable fact that one thing is the opposite of another thing, babble away some kind of buzz about “shades of gray” and that somehow changes the whole equation around. Well, it doesn’t…on/off is an either-or, on is the opposite of off…heat/cold is your incremental continuum, but shocker, those are opposites too.
If the argument relies on opposite things being the same, it fails. And no, I can’t speak to whether Rev. King anticipated that or not. But if his plan was based on that, he was wrong. It’s just a fact.
- mkfreeberg | 08/15/2013 @ 18:54mkfreeberg: As I have already stated, I cannot comment what was in the dead guy’s head.
But you just did. You said King was “hoodwinked into a bit of liberal propaganda that is the purest nonsense”. Hookwinked means he believed something that wasn’t true.
mkfreeberg: Light/dark is a continuum too
Good. So we can have a situation where there is some inequality yet less inequality overall compared to another situation. For instance, there are inequalities in a republican form of government, but less than in a feudal monarchy. Similarly, it’s possible for a policy to create some inequality while reducing inequality overall. According to King’s words above, affirmative action reduces overall inequality.
mkfreeberg: And no, I can’t speak to whether Rev. King anticipated that or not.
But you just did. You said King was “hoodwinked into a bit of liberal propaganda that is the purest nonsense”. Hookwinked means he believed something that wasn’t true, in this case, that affirmative action would reduce inequality.
- Zachriel | 08/16/2013 @ 03:18You said King was “hoodwinked into a bit of liberal propaganda that is the purest nonsense”. Hookwinked means he believed something that wasn’t true.
Right, I’m making every effort to give him the benefit of the doubt, since we know he was either hoodwinked, or a hoodwinker. Either way, a thing is not the opposite of itself, and you cannot “create equality” by means of a policy that deliberately treats people unequally. I’m right about that, right?
Similarly, it’s possible for a policy to create some inequality while reducing inequality overall.
Again: Equality and inequality are opposites. A thing is not the opposite of itself, and an argument that relies on a thing being identical to its opposite, fails automatically, as yours just did. I’m right about that, right?
You said King was “hoodwinked into a bit of liberal propaganda that is the purest nonsense”. Hookwinked means he believed something that wasn’t true, in this case, that affirmative action would reduce inequality.
Again, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. We know Rev. King was either hoodwinked, or was one of the hoodwinkers. You don’t create equality by treating people unequally, and that is why when you tell your parents “I get to take two turns in Monopoly and collect twice as much for passing Go, because he got more Cheeerios,” they don’t go for it because they KNOW it will not lead to greater harmony, peace, understanding…equality. They know it doesn’t work.
I’ve been convinced for awhile that liberals are just people whose parents just let them do whatever…maybe used the teevee as an electronic babysitter. This conversation’s going a long way toward reinforcing that view.
- mkfreeberg | 08/16/2013 @ 06:03Theodore Dalrymple had something to say along those lines:
President Obama, for instance, has achieved pretty much all it is possible to achieve in America. He’ll be in history books for as long as people care about the United States. And yet, He can’t even rouse Himself to tell His followers to lay off a frickin’ rodeo clown. The chip is never coming off his shoulder.
Isn’t it funny, too, that all those millions of people who have — and continue — to agitate for “greater equality” never give up anything themselves? The rural poor look down on the urban poor, and vice versa. In practice, “equality” always boils down to “take that other guy’s stuff away and give it to me.“
- Severian | 08/16/2013 @ 07:18Equal opportunity NOT equal outcome. Big FUCKING difference, libs just don’t get it. Ya’ can’t have freedom AND guaranteed equality. That’s why they are so willing to give theirs away and take ours away.
Just had to make it a perfect 100 comments.
- tim | 08/16/2013 @ 12:57mkfreeberg: Either way, a thing is not the opposite of itself, and you cannot “create equality” by means of a policy that deliberately treats people unequally. I’m right about that, right?
Establishing a republican form of government creates new political inequalities that replace the old inequalities of a monarchy. Some have more power than before, some have less, yet the result is less inequality overall. Power is more evenly distributed, even if it’s not perfectly equal.
mkfreeberg: Again: Equality and inequality are opposites. A thing is not the opposite of itself, and an argument that relies on a thing being identical to its opposite, fails automatically, as yours just did. I’m right about that, right?
Well, when something is measured on a continuum, especially one with many dimensions, then simplistic binary thinking doesn’t work. With grays, the same color can be both light and dark.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 03:32http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html
Severian: In practice, “equality” always boils down to “take that other guy’s stuff away and give it to me.“
Sure, but when one group takes from another, then some sort of restitution is reasonable.
tim: Equal opportunity NOT equal outcome.
So one person chains another, then when the slave finally frees himself, suddenly it’s all about fair play.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 03:36Well, when something is measured on a continuum, especially one with many dimensions, then simplistic binary thinking doesn’t work. With grays, the same color can be both light and dark.
But — if our desire is to make the gray square lighter, we are not fulfilling the goal by making it darker.
Heat and cold are on a continuum too. But we do not make something cooler by setting it on fire.
Altitude is on a continuum too. But we do not raise the altitude of something by dropping it.
Real numbers are on a continuum. But you do not increase a sum by adding in negative numbers.
So your observation about “many dimensions” might work for this, but your observation about “on a continuum” is completely irrelevant. With fractional measurements as well as with integral ones, and binary ones, opposites remain opposites. Have you enjoyed success arguing this way? “Let’s get that peanut butter, it’s better and cheaper.” “Ah yes, but money is on a continuum, it is not a binary thing…blah blah blah so let’s get the expensive, crappy peanut butter instead.” “Hmmm yeah, not binary, alright that makes sense.” Think you’re confusing dazzling people with your brilliance, with baffling them with bullshit.
But alright, you might have something with the many dimensions. So you’re saying equality and inequality are on many dimensions, and this is how it works to “create equality” by creating proposals that treat people unequally? Alright, I’m listening. How’s that work?
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 03:47mkfreeberg: Heat and cold are on a continuum too. But we do not make something cooler by setting it on fire.
The first refrigeration machines ran on burning coal.
In any case, you ignored the example we provided. Establishing a republican form of government creates new political inequalities that replace the old inequalities of a monarchy. Some have more power than before, some have less, yet the result is less inequality overall. Power is more evenly distributed, even if it’s not perfectly equal.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 03:57The first refrigeration machines ran on burning coal.
Irrelevant. Hot is hot, cold is cold. They exist on a continuum, but they are opposites, since one is actually nothing more than the absence of the other. Equality and inequality have the same relationship.
When classes of people are treated unequally, their prospects for existing side-by-side in camaraderie, or kinship, or as peers of some kind, is greatly diminished. Their advantages made different, their challenges in life become different, they can’t exchange advice with each other about what to do about the problems they might share, since their most effective solutions for those common problems will likely become different. If I understand your argument correctly, you’re insisting that since Dr. King didn’t see this coming, no one else should anticipate it either, even though unlike MLK we’ve had the benefit of watching it happen.
But it would be foolish to suppose that everyone who ever said anything about “creating equality” through Affirmative Action, was really surprised by the results. It divided people by design, because the fact of the matter is that if people get along too well, a lot of liberal politicians lose their jobs. Liberal politics is all about exploiting class resentment, therefore there has to be some class resentment in order for these people to have a purpose.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 04:21mkfreeberg: Irrelevant.
Of course it’s relevant. You put hot burning stuff in one end and get cold out the other.
mkfreeberg: If I understand your argument correctly, you’re insisting that since Dr. King didn’t see this coming
We’re arguing that your position is overly simplistic. King directly addresses your position, yet after days of opportunities, you still haven’t bothered to try and understand what he said.
mkfreeberg: Equality and inequality have the same relationship.
You ignored the example we provided. Establishing a republican form of government creates new political inequalities that replace the old inequalities of a monarchy. Some have more power than before, some have less, yet the result is less inequality overall. Power is more evenly distributed, even if it’s not perfectly equal.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 04:37You’re comparing a machine that actually works, with a set of policies that don’t work and haven’t worked. The reason the machine works, is that the stuff it puts out is different from the stuff that was put in, because there is machinery in between; whereas Affirmative Action just puts out what it gets in. Hot is not cold, and equality is not inequality. So with Affirmative Action failing to bring greater equality and harmony, you can stamp your feet and protest “But…it’s supposed to work like this machine we’ve been imagining,” but the response to that is, that’s why it is not that machine. You can’t “create equality” by treating people unequally.
We’re arguing that your position is overly simplistic. King directly addresses your position, yet after days of opportunities, you still haven’t bothered to try and understand what he said.
There’s no reason to. The policy has been tried out, and a lot of other people advanced the same reasons why it would work, slicker than hog snot on a doorknob. At the end of it, the program has emerged as just another way for liberal democrats to maintain a hold on power, it hasn’t brought people closer together, and it’s turned out to be something of a joke along with being a blight on the U.S. Constitution.
But my point is not that Affirmative Action produces inequality instead of equality. Nor is my point that it should have been expected to. My point is that it was built to.
Why don’t you come back and explain how your equality-from-inequality machine works…after it actually, you know, works.
You ignored the example we provided. Establishing a republican form of government creates new political inequalities that replace the old inequalities of a monarchy. Some have more power than before, some have less, yet the result is less inequality overall. Power is more evenly distributed, even if it’s not perfectly equal.
So?
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 05:03Sure, but when one group takes from another, then some sort of restitution is reasonable.
And right there, you’ve justified every gulag that has ever existed. The Soviets thought the bourgeoisie had “taken” from the peasants, simply by practicing capitalism, a.k.a. engaging in commerce, a.k.a. just living their lives. They were defined as “expropriators” not because of what they had done, but because of who they were. And “class enemy” was a hereditary status.
You’ll also notice — well, you won’t, but perhaps the intellectually honest among your “readers” will — that you’ve also just built inequality right into the advancing-greater-equality mechanism. Reasonable according to whose standards, comrade? Who decides? Who enforces the restitution?
Funny how that works. The hard work of “advancing equality” always falls on a “vanguard of the proletariat”….
…who are always extremely well compensated for their services, in the very best capitalist fashion. And they get to stay on top, living like sultans, because “equality is a continuum” and we never quite get all the way there. We’re always just one more revolution away from bliss.
Meanwhile the peasants — you know, the ones the vanguard is “helping” — starve in their millions, and the gulags keep filling. But it’s ok, though — they’re doing the Lord’s work.
Fascinating morality you have. Do please keep telling us how fond you are of those little apes we call humans.
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 07:56mkfreeberg: You’re comparing a machine that actually works, with a set of policies that don’t work and haven’t worked.
You said, “Hot is hot, cold is cold,” and yet heat in one place can create cold some place else.
Zachriel: King directly addresses your position, yet after days of opportunities, you still haven’t bothered to try and understand what he said.
mkfreeberg: There’s no reason to.
You don’t even have to try and understand what someone says before rejecting it out of hand. You do realize that’s an admission that you are not arguing in good faith?
Zachriel: You ignored the example we provided. Establishing a republican form of government creates new political inequalities that replace the old inequalities of a monarchy. Some have more power than before, some have less, yet the result is less inequality overall. Power is more evenly distributed, even if it’s not perfectly equal.
mkfreeberg: So?
Because it shows that creating inequalities in some places can result in greater equality overall. Of course, that’s what we just said.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 08:08Zachriel: Sure, but when one group takes from another, then some sort of restitution is reasonable.
Severian: And right there, you’ve justified every gulag that has ever existed.
Not to mention making criminals pay restitution, and civil suits.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 08:29You said, “Hot is hot, cold is cold,” and yet heat in one place can create cold some place else.
It’s the Argumentum ad Plausible fallacy I called out years ago. Now that Richard III’s skeleton has been discovered and we have renewed debate about whether Henry VII killed the princes in the tower, we might today call it “arguing like a Ricardian.” It is a persuasive force upon the weak-minded, which tend to conflate an argument that some possibility is plausible with iron-clad proof that it is truth. Yes, you can create a relatively simple device that will take in heat, and put out cold that it wouldn’t be putting out without this supply of heat. To settle the question that really matters, whether Affirmative Action is such a device, we might try Affirmative Action out and see what it does. Well, it’s turned into an exercise in Thing I Know #52, so it must be missing some gears if that was the intent of the design.
To test whether it is the intent of the design, we can look at people who continue to push Affirmative Action and see if they’re the least bit concerned about the re-tooling and re-assembly that might be needed. Sorry, can’t do that with Dr. Rev. King. But we can do that with all the living proponents of AA…and…well, no, they seem to like the ensuing rancor and interclass resentment just fine.
By the way, did you notice the irony if you’re advancing the Argumentum ad Plausible fallacy, underneath a post in which Prof. Sowell is quoted, in his very first paragraph:
Affirmative Action must be the right way to go, since hey, look at this firewood-powered ice-maker. Try it again, and again, because, Ice-maker. What was the definition of insanity again?
You don’t even have to try and understand what someone says before rejecting it out of hand. You do realize that’s an admission that you are not arguing in good faith?
No, I don’t. Dead guy had an idea, idea has been tried (you seem to be having a problem with this part), didn’t do what it was supposed to do. Dead guy was wrong. It’s verifiable and verified. Your rebuttal to this part appears to be a nothing; simple restatement of the dead guy’s quotes, testament to how sure he was of himself. So your two-of-a-kind on “real” cards, beats my full house on cards you’ve rationalized don’t really exist.
Thing I Know #408. You can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 08:38mkfreeberg: It’s the Argumentum ad Plausible fallacy I called out years ago.
Your claim is that some event *can not* happen. Showing that it *can* happen is the contradiction of your claim. It doesn’t mean the event did happen.
Your original claim was that the left advocates inequality because some on the left support affirmative action. Yet, King supported affirmative action as a way to help equalize an inherently unequal situation.
You tend diverted by saying it was impossible, which actually doesn’t address the point, as certainly King thought it could; and as we showed, it is certainly possible to increase overall equality even if it means increasing inequality in some aspects.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 08:45Not to mention making criminals pay restitution, and civil suits.
Uh huh. Because torts between individuals are exactly the same thing as class crimes.
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 08:48Severian: Uh huh. Because torts between individuals are exactly the same thing as class crimes.
Corporations and political entities may be held accountable. Of course, political entities write the legal rules, so they can often avoid actual accountability, but not moral responsibility.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 08:53Your original claim was that the left advocates inequality because some on the left support affirmative action. Yet, King supported affirmative action as a way to help equalize an inherently unequal situation.
And was subsequently proven to be wrong.
You tend diverted by saying it was impossible, which actually doesn’t address the point, as certainly King thought it could; and as we showed, it is certainly possible to increase overall equality even if it means increasing inequality in some aspects.
Okay, so now you have taken what we were arguing about and sliced it paper-thin into a bunch of little micro-issues, so you can accuse me of leap-frogging from one subject to the next. Alright, so now that you have created this new necessity of Dewey-Decimali-izing what we were talking about, what do we have now:
1. A thing is not the opposite of itself
2. An attempt to make a thing, cannot begin as the attempt to make the opposite of that thing
3. It is possible for a nominally complex bit of machinery to turn a thing into the opposite of itself
4. It is plausible that, ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto can be created ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto
5. Some honest people might be deluded into thinking a thing is the opposite of itself
6. Some lefties are lefties because they have good intentions
Look, if what you’re really trying to advance is #6, why don’t we just save butt-loads of time, and I’ll just go ahead and agree with you about that.
But as is the case with any political movement, as you get closer to the center of it you’re going to find fewer and fewer of the ignorant, and more and more of the calculating types who know exactly what’s going down. The Robespierres who aren’t quite so much surprised when they’re the next ones on the guillotine, but more like, they’re gambling, and if they end up on that scaffold it means that they lost. But the point is, equality for the masses is not what they have in mind.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 08:53Corporations and political entities may be held accountable. Of course, political entities write the legal rules, so they can often avoid actual accountability, but not moral responsibility.
So…. a social class is a “political entity,” then. Which can be held accountable for its crimes. Aaaaand we’re back to justifying labor camps. Good show.
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 09:04mkfreeberg: And was subsequently proven to be wrong.
We haven’t argued the point one way or the other because it’s irrelevant. You had argued that people on the left advocate policies to increase inequality, and pointed to affirmative action as an example. King, as he clearly explained, advocated affirmative action to create a more equitable society. This directly contradicts your position.
mkfreeberg: 6. Some lefties are lefties because they have good intentions. Look, if what you’re really trying to advance is #6
Except it still doesn’t resolve the issue, unless you also grant that being on the political left means advocating for greater equality.
Severian: So…. a social class is a “political entity,” then.
We said, “Sure, but when one group takes from another, then some sort of restitution is reasonable.” It’s clearly the case for groups that have adopted a corporate character, perhaps less clear for social classes. But because aristocracies are often descendants of those who stole the land by force, some redress may be reasonable.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 14:05We haven’t argued the point one way or the other because it’s irrelevant. You had argued that people on the left advocate policies to increase inequality, and pointed to affirmative action as an example. King, as he clearly explained, advocated affirmative action to create a more equitable society. This directly contradicts your position.
So when a thin rationalization is used, which illogically relies on a proposition that a thing is the opposite of itself, it directly contradicts my position. That’s interesting.
Your error is to evaluate the intent of an ideology that is inherently deceptive, based on its false promises. You may as well argue that the whole point to providing bank account information to that deposed Nigerian Prince is to get hold of my fifth of the $250 million dollars or whatever it is.
Except it still doesn’t resolve the issue, unless you also grant that being on the political left means advocating for greater equality.
Among the well-intentioned and ignorant, it may involve falling for a false promise along those lines.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 14:11mkfreeberg: So when a thin rationalization is used, which illogically relies on a proposition that a thing is the opposite of itself, it directly contradicts my position.
We pointed out, and you ignored, it’s possible to create new inequalities while also increasing overall equality. An example is the establishment of a republican form of government to replace a feudal monarchy.
mkfreeberg: Among the well-intentioned and ignorant, it may involve falling for a false promise along those lines.
That took, what, weeks? So, the left advocates for equality.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 14:20That took, what, weeks? So, the left advocates for equality.
If by “advocates for” what you really mean is “makes false promises about, while laboring toward the opposite,” then that would be accurate.
Y’all seem to have a real problem with opposites.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 14:26But because aristocracies are often descendants of those who stole the land by force, some redress may be reasonable.
Aha. So it’s reasonable to punish an entire category of people for something their ancestors did. Class guilt is heritable, and “advocacy for equality” entails deciding on a “reasonable” punishment for the descendants of wrongdoers. This is precisely the rationale behind the gulags.
What wonderful kommissars y’all would’ve made.
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 14:41mkfreeberg: If by “advocates for” what you really mean is “makes false promises about, while laboring toward the opposite,” then that would be accurate.
Leaders; left, right and center; often mouth platitudes while attempting to maintain power for themselves. Leftists advocate for equality. Conservatives advocate for traditional values. Some abuse their position to take power for themselves. However, not everyone on the left is an extremist, and most developed countries have mixed economies, including social safety nets.
mkfreeberg: So it’s reasonable to punish an entire category of people for something their ancestors did.
We didn’t say punishment, but redress.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 15:08The last quote should be attributed to Severian.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 15:10We didn’t say punishment, but redress.
Uh huh. And it’s not “getting worked to death in a labor camp,” it’s “thought reform.”
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 15:11It seems like, to interpret your points the way you intend, we have to uncritically believe everything the leftist leaders say about what they want to do, while questioning the leaders of other ideologies. Your point, therefore, becomes a classic textbook example of circular reasoning.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 15:15we have to uncritically believe everything the leftist leaders say about what they want to do
Bingo. The problem the Cuttlefish have –the problem all leftists have — is justifying an ideology where force is baked right into the cake. Consider for a sec the grossly caricatured straw man position they label “conservatism.” Force isn’t a necessary part of that arrangement. Indeed if we’re doing it right no force should ever be necessary, as we hold all the high cards and are actively rigging the system to make sure they all stay in our hand. It’s only the left that requires force, because the Haves will — according to their own definition — always refuse to share with the Have Nots. Since, you know, the Haves don’t feel responsible for something their great-great-great-great-great grandparents did.
So when “advocating for greater equality” fails — as it must fail, according to their own ridiculous straw man definition — the only options are either a) hanging up your cleats and hitting the showers, or b) force.
It’s a feature not a bug. At least the original commies like Marx and Lenin were up front about this — equality shall never be achieved without a Revolution, in which all class enemies shall be eliminated.
As the Cuttlefish have amply demonstrated, they’ve got no problem with that; they just don’t want to say “I believe in shooting my enemies in the back of the neck if I can get good results by doing so.” So around and around we go about Gini coefficients and whatnot, while the history still lies bleeding there on the page for all to see.
- Severian | 08/17/2013 @ 15:28Severian: Uh huh.
Even today indigenous people are being robbed of their lands and heritage. You would have it so they could never seek redress.
mkfreeberg: It seems like, to interpret your points the way you intend, we have to uncritically believe everything the leftist leaders say about what they want to do, while questioning the leaders of other ideologies.
Must be opposite day where you live. We said, Leaders; left, right and center; often mouth platitudes while attempting to maintain power for themselves. Some politicians lie. They lie on the left. They lie on the right. They lie in the center. They lie.
Severian: Consider for a sec the grossly caricatured straw man position they label “conservatism.” Force isn’t a necessary part of that arrangement.
Conservatives generally support law-and-order, a strong military, and in the U.S., American exceptionalism.
Severian: So when “advocating for greater equality” fails — as it must fail
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 17:18On the left, the betrayal is guaranteed.
- mkfreeberg | 08/17/2013 @ 17:45mkfreeberg: On the left, the betrayal is guaranteed.
Well, that’s your claim, but there are a lot of left of center governments that have very low corruption.
- Zachriel | 08/17/2013 @ 18:18Well, that’s your claim, but there are a lot of left of center governments that have very low corruption.
Y’all tend to miss out on a lot of points that have to do with cause-and-effect. Think you’d be well served to heed the advice y’all were given in another thread, “It helps to actually argue from a position, instead of trying to come up with gotchas. You might contradict yourselves less, for one thing.”
The betrayal to which I referred was the betrayal under discussion, of equality of outcome. In liberalism, there is always an oppressor and there is always a victim. You have been advised repeatedly that you cannot truly labor toward equality — and that means, of anything — when your motivation is resentment. This is a problem exclusive to the left, so your fatalistic “What the heck, all politicians lie” weasel-wording doesn’t really work.
The very first lefty revolution, in modern times anyway, began with that noble revolutionizing for equality, and ended with the Reign of Terror as the revolutionaries beheaded other revolutionaries for not being revolutionary enough. Aside from all the other problems in such a debacle, it was a clear and obvious betrayal of the promise of equality, since there isn’t anything equalizing about lopping off heads unless you consider being headless equal to not being headless. My point is, that betrayal is intrinsic to the movement. It is woven into the fabric. Feminists have no idea how much whittling down has to be done on the men, before the men are cut down to size and equality has been reached. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have no idea how much damage has to be done against whites, to make things equal. Occupy Wall Street has no idea how much money has to be taken away from “the one percent” before it’s all good, and we can pronounce equality to have been reached. That’s the way resentment works, as a motivator in politics. There’s no stop button.
And if leftism means anything at all, it means fear and resentment are the best motivators in politics. Because they get the greatest number of people, the most emotionally agitated, in the quickest amount of time. If we were Green Lantern type folks, lefties would be using the Yellow Power Ring. Advocating for greater equality? That’s just something you say when you’re starting the latest movement based on these resentments. And actually reaching equality hasn’t got a thing to do with it.
- mkfreeberg | 08/18/2013 @ 04:09mkfreeberg: The betrayal to which I referred was the betrayal under discussion, of equality of outcome.
Sure, we understand. However, while people on the political left may want more equality, that isn’t the same as advocating perfect or absolute equality.
mkfreeberg: You have been advised repeatedly that you cannot truly labor toward equality — and that means, of anything — when your motivation is resentment.
You mean you claimed, not advised. The American revolutionaries resented the Crown, the redcoats, the Lords, the tax collectors, the Tories. Yet they “labored towards equality”.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 06:41The American revolutionaries resented the Crown, the redcoats, the Lords, the tax collectors, the Tories. Yet they “labored towards equality”.
Really? There is a huge and extremely influential historiography arguing that the Revolution, the Constitution, &c were all for the benefit of colonial elites, who thought the British were “laboring towards equality” by taxing them too much.
Here again, you keep citing “all men are created equal” as if it were some kind of gotcha. From which we’re supposed to conclude… what? That Washington and the boys got it all right in 1776, and subsequent American history has been nothing but wine and roses? I seem to recall abolitionists “advocating for greater equality” in the 1850s. How did that work out?
It helps to actually argue from a position, instead of trying to come up with gotchas. You might contradict yourselves less, for one thing.
- Severian | 08/18/2013 @ 07:32Severian: Really? There is a huge and extremely influential historiography arguing that the Revolution, the Constitution, &c were all for the benefit of colonial elites, who thought the British were “laboring towards equality” by taxing them too much.
That’s right! The colonial elites thought they weren’t being given their due as English gentlemen. They weren’t being treated as equals to their peers in the home country. They didn’t have representation in parliament, so were subject to taxes they had no say in. Washington complained in a letter he was paying top dollar for last years clothing styles. No respect!
Of course, not all colonial revolutionaries were elites, and even among the elites, there was a strong current of equality,”all men are created equal” as written by an elite. In any event, the result of the revolution was a republic.
Severian: Here again, you keep citing “all men are created equal” as if it were some kind of gotcha. From which we’re supposed to conclude… what?
Only that they were advocating for a more egalitarian society. The result was greater equality.
Severian: I seem to recall abolitionists “advocating for greater equality” in the 1850s. How did that work out?
The result was greater equality.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 07:51Yet they “labored towards equality”.
They labored toward independence, and no taxation without representation.
- mkfreeberg | 08/18/2013 @ 08:36mkfreeberg: They labored toward independence, and no taxation without representation.
That’s right, they demanded equality with their peers. While Englishmen in the home country had representation, Englishmen in the colonies did not. Similarly for trial by jury, and other such rights. Think they wrote their reasons down somewhere. Oh yes, here it is:
In particular, they revolted to establish a Republic, a state of greater equality, one where the people would be sovereign, not the king.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 08:47Washington complained in a letter he was paying top dollar for last years clothing styles. No respect!
That’s an interesting attempt at…. sarcasm? You should stick to cut-n-paste when you’re obfuscating. It’s still pathetic, but slightly less pathetic than that.
The result was greater equality.
And 600,000 dead. And the near-total destruction of the southern United States. Force, see. You’re free to argue that the Civil War was, on balance, a good thing. But you don’t get to coast on the Union Army’s accumulated moral capital. Those results came with a very high price.
Many would argue that abolition was so morally compelling that the ends justified the means. But that’s the problem with enforcing morality with bullets. You can use the same moral “logic” to excuse labor camps, or the Reign of Terror, or leftist leaders living like kings while their people starve. It’s easy to turn plain ol’ resentment into some kind of grand metaphysical principle. Resentment, jealousy, and covetousness become “advocating for greater equality.” It’s not that you don’t like that guy over there and want his stuff; you’re seeking redress for class grievances.
And you know what? I’m ok with that. We’re only human after all. Were leftists simply to say “I don’t like that guy and I want his stuff,” I’d think they were awful people, but fundamentally no worse than the rest of us. Moral precepts are most often honored in the breach, and the first step towards being a better person is acknowledging all the times you fall short.
What I’m not ok with is strutting around pigeon-style, pulling flimsy rationalizations out of your ass to cover this basic amorality. I’m not a religious guy, but the language of sin is appropriate here — the worst, most irredeemable sinners are those who mistake their sins for righteousness. You all are ok with the notion of inherited class guilt. And the idea that one can hate, and seek to destroy, an entire class of people and still be seeking “equality.” You’re preaching wickedness and calling it wisdom.
You’d see that if you actually tried to argue from a position, instead of just trying to come up with cheap little rhetorical gotchas.
- Severian | 08/18/2013 @ 08:48Severian: That’s an interesting attempt at…. sarcasm?
No, it’s a revealing example. George Washington thought himself an English gentlemen, deserving of certain rights and privileges in return for his fealty to the crown. He put his wig on like other gentlemen, so thought he should be treated like one.
Severian: And 600,000 dead.
Yes, the South seceded to preserve slavery, sparking civil war.
Severian: Force, see.
Force, see, like the American Revolution.
Severian: Many would argue that abolition was so morally compelling that the ends justified the means.
Sure, some would. Many fought believing that the survival of republican government itself depended on union. That was certainly the federal government’s stated cause.
Severian: You can use the same moral “logic” to excuse labor camps, or the Reign of Terror, or leftist leaders living like kings while their people starve.
Or, on the right, preservation of their ‘peculiar institution’.
Severian: It’s easy to turn plain ol’ resentment into some kind of grand metaphysical principle.
Sure, and in the American South, resentment turned into Jim Crow and blaming blacks for their defeat and misery.
Severian: Were leftists simply to say “I don’t like that guy and I want his stuff,”
“We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property.”
Resentment is not only found on the political left.
Severian: You all are ok with the notion of inherited class guilt. And the idea that one can hate, and seek to destroy, an entire class of people and still be seeking “equality.”
No, we’re not okay with inherited class guilt. Seeking redress is not the same as punishment, as we indicated above. Some on the extreme left want to destroy the class structure, however, describing the extreme left is not the same as agreeing with it.
Severian: You’d see that if you actually tried to argue from a position,
Our position is clear. The political left is defined as people advocating more equality. The political right is defined as people advocating less equality. There are extremes in both positions. There can be nuances in both positions. The problem with the original post is conflating the political left with its most extreme manifestations. It’s like calling conservatives Hitler.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 09:10No, we’re not okay with inherited class guilt. Seeking redress is not the same as punishment, as we indicated above
Yup. And as I indicated above, it’s not being worked to death in a labor camp, it’s thought reform. Use whatever euphemism you like — you’re still taking something away from someone in the here-and-now for something his ancestors did a century ago.
Our position is clear. The political left is defined as people advocating more equality.
And you’ve been shown half a dozen instances where that advocacy flies off the rails and produces its exact opposite, because nobody ever hits the cutoff switch. Nobody ever says “well, we’ve achieved all the equality we can through moral suasion, it’s Miller Time.” There are always quotas, or punishments for class guil…. oh, excuse me, “redress,” and when those fail, mandatory make-believe. Or bullets and labor camps. Like Rousseau forcing men to be free, we’ll force everyone to be equal.
The political right is defined as people advocating less equality.
I don’t know a single conservative thinker who maintains this. No conservative philosopher I’m aware of comes close to saying “inequality is great, we should have more of it, here’s a five year plan to more efficiently stick it to the peasants.” Even someone like Joseph de Maistre, who comes closest to your ridiculous caricature, only defended hierarchy as the natural order of things, and advocated a return to monarchy after the French Revolution. Noticing that something exists, and urging people to embrace it after the spectacularly bloody failure of an experiment to get rid of it, is hardly the same thing as urging the monarch to actively pursue more inequality.
Just as “advocating against those who advocate for more equality” is hardly the same thing as arguing for inequality as a positive good. Once again, your position only works by pretending that different things are the same, or similar things are different.
In other words, you can have your definitions, or you can have history, but you can’t have both.
- Severian | 08/18/2013 @ 09:50Severian: Yup. And as I indicated above, it’s not being worked to death in a labor camp, it’s thought reform.
Sure, and you can fight strawmen all day without breaking a sweat.
Severian: And you’ve been shown half a dozen instances where that advocacy flies off the rails and produces its exact opposite, because nobody ever hits the cutoff switch.
Sure, and we’ve shown a half dozens instances where that doesn’t apply.
Zachriel: The political right is defined as people advocating less equality.
Severian: I don’t know a single conservative thinker who maintains this.
You are correct, and we misspoke. The right encompasses conservatives, those who only want to maintain or defend traditional inequalities, and not necessarily bring about less equality. Those who want to significantly unwind progress are sometimes called reactionaries.
Severian: Just as “advocating against those who advocate for more equality” is hardly the same thing as arguing for inequality as a positive good.
Conservatives certainly do argue inequality is a positive good. Indeed, most everyone recognizes this, except for the extreme left. Inequality is the primary ingredient for a meritocracy and the proper functioning of markets.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 10:08Inequality is the primary ingredient for a meritocracy and the proper functioning of markets.
Hmmm…think I know what you’re trying to say, but that’s not quite it. Markets function quite properly with only minimal inequality. It just makes the buying choices just a bit tougher. Equality, within the conservative/moderate mindset, is quite alright provided it is produced by nature, read that as skill+chance, not by fiat.
Perhaps the right phrasing is that freedom is the primary ingredient for a meritocracy and the proper functioning of markets.
- mkfreeberg | 08/18/2013 @ 12:43mkfreeberg: Markets function quite properly with only minimal inequality.
There are winners and losers, which results in economic differences. The winners can then often leverage their advantage.
mkfreeberg: Equality, within the conservative/moderate mindset, is quite alright provided it is produced by nature, read that as skill+chance, not by fiat.
Yes, the idea is that differences in outcomes is natural. What’s interesting is that the aristocracy and colonial powers said the same thing in their day, even as they inherited great wealth and power.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 12:53Inherited property is still property.
What’s even more interesting is that our friends on the left seem to think, throughout history, that if they can simply present some eloquently-stated arguments that essentially say “You should give up your property,” the people who own the property will simply…y’know…just say something like “wow, that seems pretty sensible” and just do it.
Some computer software salesmen with whom I worked many years ago, sometimes made jokes about going deer hunting and leaving the rifles at home. Just talk the deer into committing suicide.
- mkfreeberg | 08/18/2013 @ 12:56mkfreeberg: Inherited property is still property.
Of course it is, as the aristocracy that owns just about everything will gladly remind the peasants.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 13:41mkfreeberg: Perhaps the right phrasing is that freedom is the primary ingredient for a meritocracy and the proper functioning of markets.
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
- Zachriel | 08/18/2013 @ 13:45Equal protection under the law. Man, liberals hate that.
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 06:21mkfreeberg: Equal protection under the law. Man, liberals hate that.
Actually, equal protection is a liberal idea. Try to answer the point: In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 07:58There was a point to that?
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 08:08In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
Severian: There was a point to that?
It’s called irony. It means there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities. A simple example is a feudal capitation tax set to impoverish the poor. Another would be a poll tax designed to deny suffrage to poor blacks. Or separate but equal.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 08:20Irony means there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities? I thought it meant something else.
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 08:31They’re too busy justifying police states to worry about writing with precision. Else why would they say “there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities”?
Therefore, we must transcend the limits of the rule of law to rectify these gross social inequalities.
Fascinating, Kommissar. Do go on.
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 09:06mkfreeberg: Irony means there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities?
Sigh.
It’s called irony. The quote from Anatole France means there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities. A simple example is a feudal capitation tax set to impoverish the poor. Another would be a poll tax designed to deny suffrage to poor blacks. Or separate but equal.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 09:07Severian: Therefore, we must transcend the limits of the rule of law to rectify these gross social inequalities.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 09:09Sigh.
Hey, I’m just going by what y’all said:
So you’re saying, because of the first part the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress were maintaining the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” required an eventual elimination of, to quote Anatole France, “gross social inequities.” And you were making an ironic statement about this, but wanted to make it look like you were educating someone really retrograde and slope-foreheaded, so needed to introduce that other person to the concept of “irony.” As a result, you used sloppy pronoun reference to make it look like the word “irony” referred to this doctrine, that you made up by way of interpreting what Anatole France had to say…and we know how precisely and accurately you folks interpret things…but I have to take y’all’s word on it, although Mr. France was not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and I can’t seem to find the quote anyway.
Maybe y’all can provide a link to that? Not that I doubt it, but I think I’d like to examine the context.
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 09:25mkfreeberg: So you’re saying, because of the first part the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress were maintaining the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” required an eventual elimination of, to quote Anatole France, “gross social inequities.”
That’s right. They pointed to social inequities, including taxation without representation, to justify what the law considered treason.
mkfreeberg: I can’t seem to find the quote anyway.
It’s on the page you linked. The irony is evident in the exaggerated phrase “majestic equality”.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 09:37What is at issue is the phrase “there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities.” That was not an Anatole France quote?
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 09:46mkfreeberg: “there are limits to the rule of law when there are gross social inequities.”
Those are our words. We were asked to explain the point of Anatole France’s comment about the “majestic equality” of the law. It’s not that difficult to follow. We also provided some examples.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 09:52Okay, glad we got that cleared up. So if I understand your position correctly, gross social inequities make it necessary to circumvent written law; effectively, to pretend the written law says one thing when it actually says another, and to pretend some assets are the property of one when they are actually the property of another; and as precedent for that doctrine, you cite Jefferson’s words that say “it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 11:45mkfreeberg: So if I understand your position correctly, gross social inequities make it necessary to circumvent written law; effectively, to pretend the written law says one thing when it actually says another
The signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence didn’t say that the law said one thing when it actually said another, rather, they pointed to unwritten laws that overrode the written law.
So now try to comprehend France’s point: “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 11:59The signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence didn’t say that the law said one thing when it actually said another, rather, they pointed to unwritten laws that overrode the written law.
So your point is, they get to make up unwritten laws, therefore, so do you? Dunno about that. For starters, they were willing to sign a document — at great risk to themselves — making clear not only what their identities were, but how many of them there were. Have y’all done something like that? There are also differences in what unwritten-laws were being described.
So now try to comprehend France’s point…
Looks like an observation. I’m under the impression he’s correct. So?
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 12:11mkfreeberg: So your point is, they get to make up unwritten laws, therefore, so do you?
No, we didn’t say that either. This discussion started with your invocation of equal protection under the law, which, by the way, was a liberal ideal. However, there’s a limit to what justice can be provided by the rule of law, even with equal protection.
“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”
mkfreeberg: I’m under the impression he’s correct. So?
And you don’t see a problem with the “equality” illustrated by France’s comment? Or a capitation tax? Or poll tax?
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 13:10This discussion started with your invocation of equal protection under the law, which, by the way, was a liberal ideal.
And so, apparently, is tossing that law aside whenever you decide that “equality” needs a little boost, because….
there’s a limit to what justice can be provided by the rule of law, even with equal protection.
Hey, lookit that! Your desperate flailing for a gotcha! made you contradict yourselves in the very next sentence. That’s gotta be some kind of record.
So equal protection under the laws is great, until somebody — maybe Jefferson, maybe Lenin, maybe Anatole France — decides that it’s not so great, because there’s not enough “justice.” Which I guess is now synonymous with “equality,” or maybe just “advocating for equality.” It’s so hard to keep it all straight. But anyhow, when one of those guys decides there isn’t enough justice / equality / whatever under the current dispensation, he can point to an “unwritten law” and start shooting people. Because hey, it worked out that once….
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 13:50Severian: Your desperate flailing for a gotcha! made you contradict yourselves in the very next sentence.
No, they are not contradictory. Equality under the law is not always sufficient. For instance, a poll tax meant to prevent the poor from voting is hardly equality, even if it is equality under the law.
Severian: So equal protection under the laws is great, until somebody — maybe Jefferson, maybe Lenin, maybe Anatole France — decides that it’s not so great, because there’s not enough “justice.”
In the U.S., poll taxes were eliminated by the 24th Amendment, which helped to end Jim Crow, and was one of the seminal achievements of the Civil Rights movement.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 15:09In the U.S., poll taxes were eliminated by the 24th Amendment, which helped to end Jim Crow, and was one of the seminal achievements of the Civil Rights movement.
Uh huh. And in the Soviet Union, Stalin decided equality under the law wasn’t sufficient, which ended up with millions of people dead in work camps. Please do go on, Herr Kommissar, and explain to us who gets to decide when the law is no longer sufficient. How do you join that club? Is there hazing? Do you have to sing your alma mater’s fight song before they let you start deporting undesirables?
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 16:15Severian: And in the Soviet Union, Stalin decided equality under the law wasn’t sufficient, which ended up with millions of people dead in work camps.
Good example of equality under the law. Many died due to a disastrous policy of collectivization. Stalin was a left wing extremist, but his methods were mostly based on law.
Severian: explain to us who gets to decide when the law is no longer sufficient.
You might read the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 16:33http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_zoom_2.html
Stalin decided that equality under the law was insufficient based on the US Declaration of Independence?
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 16:59Severian: Stalin decided that equality under the law was insufficient based on the US Declaration of Independence?
Quite the contrary, Stalin enforced a draconian version of equality before the law.
The U.S. Declaration is one argument for when the written law is no longer sufficient. Pay particular attention to the Prudence Clause.
We find it persuasive, but it requires accepting the precepts of the syllogism, which you may or may not share.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 17:04But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Despotism…like what we see under left-wing governments, over and over again. As in, a constant fixture.
I’ve always thought of this as the “hath shewn” clause.
- mkfreeberg | 08/19/2013 @ 17:08mkfreeberg: Despotism…like what we see under left-wing governments, over and over again. As in, a constant fixture.
Denmark is under despotism?
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 17:36We find it persuasive
Of course you do, darlings. You’re the ones arguing that leaders can set the laws aside when they feel things aren’t “equal” enough.
If that’s the principle you want to stand on, go ahead. But for every Jefferson, I’ll raise you a Stalin plus Mao.
Stalin enforced a draconian version of equality before the law.
Ludicrous. The deportation of the kulaks in the 1930s? The show trials? Khruschev’s secret speech? You simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
- Severian | 08/19/2013 @ 18:10Severian: You’re the ones arguing that leaders can set the laws aside
Actually, it was the argument of the Continental Congess in 1776.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 18:33Severian: The deportation of the kulaks in the 1930s?
The kulaks were considered enemies of the poorer peasants. Stalin wanted to eliminate them as a class, which led to a purge where thousands were murdered, entire regions depopulated, and an ensuing famine which resulted in the death of millions.
- Zachriel | 08/19/2013 @ 18:53Actually, it was the argument of the Continental Congess in 1776.
It’s been the argument of a lot of folks, from Robespierre through Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim, &c. If that’s how you want to interpret the American Revolution, go nuts — the history biz loves “dissent” from the left, and there’s an Alger Hiss chair at Williams or someplace that seems to have your name on it. You might have a rough time getting your “greater equality” argument past the Africanists and Feminists, but I’m sure your cut-n-paste skills are more than up to the task.
So be it. According to your own argument, you can score one in the plus column, but it entails about one hundred million dead in the minus column. Here again — even accepting your own silly premises for the sake of argument — you’ve got “advocating for greater equality” actually sorta working once, and leading to murderous despotism about twenty other times. I guess you’re ok with that, so long as a guy on a blog somewhere says “Louis XVI was on the political right.” That’s an interesting moral sensibility you have.
The kulaks were considered enemies of the poorer peasants. Stalin wanted to eliminate them as a class, which led to a purge where thousands were murdered, entire regions depopulated, and an ensuing famine which resulted in the death of millions.
I assume you’re trying to make some kind of point here? Let’s see if you can spot the contradiction. Hint: It has something to do with the words “equality” and “murder.”
It really helps to argue from a position, instead of trying to come up with gotchas.
- Severian | 08/20/2013 @ 06:17[…] even tell anymore. Something about how Louis XVI was a conservative, so that justifies Stalin. It’s surreal. Meanwhile, over at Rhymes with Cars and Girls, supposedly staunch Libertarian open borders […]
- A Modest Proposal: Flagellant Processions | Rotten Chestnuts | 08/20/2013 @ 07:29Severian: It’s been the argument of a lot of folks, from Robespierre through Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim, &c.
Sure, and Jefferson. And Gandhi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March
Severian: Here again — even accepting your own silly premises for the sake of argument — you’ve got “advocating for greater equality” actually sorta working once
The advocacy of equality led to civil rights, women’s suffrage, environmental controls, the social safety net. But sometimes, the struggle for equality meant war, such as the American Civil War.
Severian: Let’s see if you can spot the contradiction. Hint: It has something to do with the words “equality” and “murder.”
That doesn’t mean the ideological aims were not greater equality. That’s the nature of extremism. A simple example is the murder of the royal family during the French Revolution, which was intended to prevent the restoration of the monarchy. It didn’t work in the long run, but that was the intention.
- Zachriel | 08/25/2013 @ 06:35