House of Eratosthenes

Da TechGuy explores the weirdness with which some of us are all too familiar…and has to be discussed, because a lot of other people are completely unaware of it. How compassionate is the modern left? How loving & lovable? They are humanitarians the same way Joy Behar is an underwear model.

The NYT talked a bit about Koch today and told about his philanthropic work:

Mr. Koch, a billionaire who is perhaps best known for his family’s contributions to conservative causes, got a standing ovation from scientists, Nobel laureates and politicians of various political stripes as he opened the new David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he gave $100 million to help build.

Yup $100 million for cancer research I was curious how the left would react. So I went to Wonkette to check it out

David Koch is super sad about how the mean poor/working people are upset because he’s funding and directing the destruction of government unions nationwide. This makes him feel bad! And even though the deeply secretive David Koch never does an interview, the New York TImes somehow managed to get him to speak, on the occasion of David Koch being honored for giving millions of dollars to a cancer research center, because he has cancer and wants to cure his own cancer, even though he owns an evil forestry empire that insists formaldehyde (a carcinogen) is not a carcinogen. See, when poor people get cancer, it’s because they suck. And when rich people who exploit nature and humanity get cancer, it’s time to send $100 million to some little people who can maybe take care of the problem.

Ok I wasn’t really curious, I excepted exactly this, and the comments were even more fun, take a peek:

Here’s one

The only upbeat part of that article is that David Koch has cancer. Everything else is just Koch-sucking.

and Barbara:

I’m really sorry about his prostate cancer. I hope that it doesn’t spread to his anus. If he has to have an asshole transplant, he will be the first person to have the transplant reject the donee.

doc zoom:

It would be inhumane to publicly rejoice at the news that a fellow human being has cancer.

I will therefore rejoice only in private.

And these are not exceptions, they are typical of the comments left. Remember if you disagree with the left politically and do something about it, you are evil and deserve a painful death.

It’s time to psychoanalyze. I’m no mental health professional and I don’t play one on teevee, but any functional adult should be able to gather the clues and figure out something about what they mean. They’re all around us. Go to any public medium that benefits from a mixed audience, by which I mean it isn’t a right-wing blog, and say “[Insert name of conservative person here] has positive characteristics,” and then sit and watch. The barbed comments will come, and quickly. It’s not an if but a when, and there isn’t a lot of waiting involved in the when.

Do conservatives act this way? Uh, not really, no. Generally the response will be to think out loud (or think through typing) until such time as they’ve made the decision not to support the person being discussed, or that person’s efforts. Yes, this can take quite a negative turn but I have yet to see such a thread devolve into a meandering toxic chain of post after post after post wishing death on the person or celebrating the fact that he has cancer. With the left, it is almost routine. It’s just like TechGuy said — obstruct their agenda, and you deserve death. An informal contest will be started, on the spot, to see who does the best job of wishing death upon you. When’s the last time a conservative did that?

No, my point isn’t that conservatives are all angels. My point is that the left is toxic. There is something in the worldview that persuades them to become…well, the exact opposite of what it is they pretend to be. “Tolerance” — out the window, forgetabbowdit, it was never, ever here. Everyone who agrees with us, agrees with us, and whoever doesn’t, shouldn’t even be walking around living. How dare they.

And they do not police their own.

I think it might have something to do with lowered standards. Conservative might say something like “I do not know personally, for a fact, that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii” and he’s already in trouble, under a magnifying glass. It is forgotten in the space of a heartbeat that for those of us born after 1961, this is the only sensible observation we can make about it, and ditto for anyone born before that date but who wasn’t in Honolulu personally watching Mrs. Dunham deliver. So the conservative doesn’t need to get to “I wish so-and-so was dead” or “I’m so glad so-and-so has cancer.” Liberals do it pretty much all the time.

It has nothing to do with “blowing off steam.” If it did, they’d blow off the steam and it would be over. That is not the case.

They’re showing off for each other.

Had a friend forward me the article where Robin of Berkeley looks into this. My leftward-leaning “blue dog democrat” former colleague was offended that Sarah Palin was being compared to Jesus Christ. Now when you read the article itself, you find this comparison was never made, directly or indirectly. She might be talking about this passage…

And then, out of the blue, Sarah Palin, like a majestic bird in flight, swooped onto the scene of a depraved and deprived nation. With her children and grandchild, her religion and her patriotism, Sarah is the antithesis of everything the progressives stand for. Palin is not just pro-life, but she emanates life — and good, clean living.

And what does the left do? They try to drag her through the mud to sully her. The hardcore among them want to eliminate her, even if this means putting her life at risk.

But I’m just not sure this is the passage that offends. There never is a good fit for this. I think the point of the piece went whistling above my former colleague’s head, and the point is: people have a tendency to become hateful when they see someone else doing something right, where they know they have done wrong — when the evidence of their senses compels them to see something positive in a place where they just don’t want to see it. I think we all have it in us to react to that with an intense, visceral hatred that comes out nowhere else.

That is true, especially, when we are participating in a group fellowship.

And it is particularly true among our leftists. They’ve got their minds all made up about who’s good and who’s bad, and any lately-arriving evidence doesn’t figure into it. That’s problematic, but what is even more problematic is this: They are engaged in a deliberate process of defining right and wrong according to an agenda, which on an individual level, they don’t completely comprehend. Koch, for example, is demonized because he is spearheading opposition to the teachers’ unions over in Wisconsin. Among those wishing death upon Mr. Koch, how many of them understand the ins & outs of the negotiations between the unions and Gov. Walker? I’m reasonably sure some of them are missing some of the key facts. I’ve had “discussions,” myself, with some leftwardly-leaning folks who are willing to admit as much. But the passion is not diminished by this, not even a tiny bit.

Just about everyone who’s observed anything lately agrees, now, that our country needs to take on a more civil tone as we discuss our differences.

That means this kind of leftist group-think is going to have to recede. It’s not good for the country. It needs to go on the wane. We need to allow it, of course, since it’s a free country & all. But that doesn’t mean it has to be encouraged.

In fact I see no reason why it should be accepted any more than a swastika on a flag hanging by some guy’s house. That might be “allowed,” too, in a free country. But it would be caustic, hateful, hurtful and dumb. Just like the comments made by the Wonkette people, which are to be found in a lot of other places besides Wonkette. One way or the other, the swastika flag would come down, I think, so I still don’t understand why this other toxic banner is flying in so many places. While those who fly it, and encourage each other to do likewise, proceed to pretend they’re the exact opposite of what the rest of us can plainly see they are.

I once tried to explain to a liberal acquaintance that I don’t actually like being a conservative. I pointed out the obvious — that my social and professional life would be so much easier if I were a brain-dead leftist like all my colleagues. Moreover, I said, being a conservative is depressing, since it’s based on the idea that humans are fundamentally short-sighted and thick-headed and will always practice as much evil as they think they can get away with, and since I’m a human….

…and then a funny thing happened: my acquaintance just didn’t get it. I tried to explain, using the simplest syllogism I know: People are scum. I am a person. Therefore…. But no dice. I tried “people do awful things all the time. I’m a person. Therefore…” Still nothing. And then it hit me: she simply couldn’t see any causal connection between what a person is and what a person does. If you’re “good,” everything you do is “good.”

It all comes back to Marx. Our modern leftists are nothing if not Marxists, even though they — being products of educational systems like Wisconsin’s — probably don’t recognize their master’s name.

Marx thought he’d seen the end of capital-H History, and that his vision was logically necessary. Therefore anyone does for “the proletariat,” one also does in the cause of capital H-History, and thus anything at all is justified. Once you’ve seen the light, you’ve granted yourself auto-absolution for everything, for all time. It’s no accident (to use an old Marxist phrase) that Karl’s nickname in high school was “Destroy” — every second sentence he said began with that word.

Or, as David Stove put it, Marx saw himself as the workers’ avenging angel, and avenging angels are useless without a good-sized appetite for blood. Our leftists are the same. They have “good intentions,” so they’re “good people,” no matter how awful their actual words and deeds are. (I’d point out that Himmler said the exact same thing to his SS troopers at Poznan, but I’d be accused of violating Godwin’s Law).
- Severian | 03/07/2011 @ 15:14

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“The Backwards World of Wonkette”Monday, March 7th, 2011

“The Backwards World of Wonkette”
Monday, March 7th, 2011