House of Eratosthenes

And there is a power-shift taking place here, one which was chiefly responsible for the dismal election results we saw a month and a half ago. Issue after issue after issue, we see those who are progressive in their prejudices, enjoy a certain cultural latitude in defining their enemies, and eschewing those enemies, a latitude that is not equivalently enjoyed by their conservative opposites. Nor by anybody else.

I see it in Piers Morgan’s idiotic comments about the petition to get his smarmy English ass deported…over his other idiotic comments.

I see it in Ed Darrell’s tireless campaign to marginalize everyone who doesn’t agree with him about everything. Yes, you have the “facts” if & only if you agree with Ed. Otherwise you’re ignorant, “anti-intellectual,” and we need not examine what facts you do & do not have, to pronounce you so. Well-informed means agreeing with Mr. Darrell, about all of it, period.

As I’ve observed before about liberalism: The irony of it is, they want to make an egalitarian world, one in which every cog is in place and spinning smoothly, producing effects that are equally beneficial for everybody concerned, in which everybody has a voice. But on the way to that plane of perfection, they are curiously obsessed, at the perceptible expense of the attention they can pay to all other things, with figuring out who should not have a say in how it all works. Show me ten pages written by liberals and I can show you eight or more pages that are nothing more than “so-and-so needs to be shown the door so us smarty-pants types can finish drawing up our plans.” For egalitarians, they are curiously captivated with the idea of the few unilaterally dictating the tastes and obligations of the many.

I think, whenever we discuss public policy — especially public policy that impacts everyone, and especially public policy that is designed to impact everyone — gathering more information about the concerns and sentiments of that “everyone” is a worthy goal. Certainly, it should lose priority on our meeting agenda, trying to figure out what bits of “everyone” should be excluded from the group taking part in making the decisions. I’m hip to the idea that, as various people peel off with their opinions, some of those emerging opinions might be so odious that they might provide an incentive to revisit that. As the saying goes, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,” sure I get all that.

But liberal arguments…and the timeframe I have in mind for this observation is right now, when they are generally victorious…seem drawn to this like arcs to a lightning rod. We have these elites, who agree with us because they’re smart like us, and then we have commoners who you can tell are too stupid to know what’s good for them, because they fail to agree with us. Or, we have those commoners who are actually elites, because they do know what’s good for them, and they have the nerve to vote against our tax increases. Either way, I notice that in the last few years when liberals have really managed to take the place over, after their long post-Clinton years wandering in the wilderness…they have enjoyed this deciding success while they have been laboring long and hard defining the enemy. No matter what your battle, that is always a first step toward victory. You can’t confront the enemy you do not define.

Also, like gun-hater Mr. Morgan, they have managed to deny this right/privilege/obligation of defining enemies, to their opposition. First amendment! When I piddle on your shoe and tell you it is raining, you are required to believe me. That is the key to their recent success, I think. We get to treat you as an enemy, and work toward your diminished influence, diminished prosperity, diminished prospects for survival. You, on the other hand, can not do the same to us…in fact, you are not even sufficiently privileged to take note of us in any audible way as an inimical force against you, which we most assuredly are.

Out of all the destructive statements we are somehow obliged to avoid viewing in any way as destructive statements, one of my favorites has long been: “These rules are put into effect in order to foster/create a work environment that is safe and non-threatening to everyone…it is also important to keep in mind that in evaluating a gesture or statement as potential sexual harassment, the intent of the person making the gesture is entirely irrelevant, the perception of the offended person decides everything.” Holy shit. Perhaps there is some other written statement, equally concise, that would be more effective in making the work environment threatening. But I honestly cannot think of what that might be. And the double-speak involved in here is something that could only be produced by lawyers looking for ways to produce new revenue. It completely blows my mind, and it’s not just me, all men can see what’s wrong with this, along with not too few common-sense women as well. And yet, the ritual endures…because, and only because, some among us toil under an obligation to avoid acknowledging, let alone defending ourselves from, enemies.

But here is my point: How is it that liberals enjoy this advantage — where they can not only define and confront their political enemies, but make an entire debating science out of it, make that their primary focus in just about everything they say or do. And their enemies, in turn, cannot? In which their political enemies are obliged to engage in this daily passive slow-suicide, obliged to treat their enemies as friends?

Simple. Our “friends” the liberals simply asked for this lopsided and unnatural advantage. And we gave it to them. Now, it’s simply expected. They can define and confront their enemies. They can do it every minute of every day. Even to such an extent that their tired promises of an egalitarian society, not only make zero sense, but are entirely self-contradictory and self-defeating. But nobody else can do this; the rest of us are obliged to pretend our enemies are friends. We are obliged to embrace, to bring closer to the bosom, all sorts of different species and breeds of venomous vipers. That’s just how it works. Piers Morgan certainly thinks so. First Amendment.

[…] or not they actually support evil, but they certainly do oppose any resistance to it. You have to define things in order to confront evil, like start by defining the evil. That means definitions, and definitions mean details. They’re not fond of details. You can […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 07/21/2013 @ 13:26
[…] or not they actually support evil, but they certainly do oppose any resistance to it. You have to define things in order to confront evil, like start by defining the evil. That means definitions, and definitions mean details. They’re not fond of details. You can […]
- Memo For File CLXXXII | Rotten Chestnuts | 07/21/2013 @ 14:28

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To Confront an Enemy, You Must First Define the EnemySunday, December 23rd, 2012

To Confront an Enemy, You Must First Define the Enemy
Sunday, December 23rd, 2012