Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

26 August, 2002
(Under the heading: "LEFTISM, RACISM and HISTORY")

It is also a matter of historical record that, after the Nazi-Soviet pact, Communists worldwide immediately became vigorously pro-Hitler. So Leftist �principles� are obviously very flexible. It is reasonable to conclude therefore, that, if Hitler had won and Stalin lost the war, Leftists would now be justifying their constant clamour for change and their bids for power as furthering Nazi ideals rather than �humanitarian� ideals.

25 August, 2002
(Under the heading: "PSYCHOLOGICAL LEFTISM")

The Leftist's passion for equality is really therefore only apparently a desire to lift the disadvantaged up. In reality it is a hatred of all those in society who are already in a superior or more powerful position to the Leftist and a desire to cut them down to size.

This explains the common puzzle of why it is that modern-day �liberals� are still indulgent about the old Soviet system. As Amis (2002) points out, the many people in literary and academic circles today who once supported Stalin and his heirs are generally held blameless and may even still be admired whereas anybody who gave the slightest hint of support for the similarly brutal Hitler regime is an utter polecat and pariah. Why? Because Hitler�s enemies were �only� the Jews whereas Stalin�s enemies were those the modern day Left still hates -- people who are doing well for themselves materially. Modern day Leftists understand and excuse Stalin and his supporters because Stalin�s hates are their hates.

Much the same explanation applies, of course, to the similar puzzle of why the French military dictator, Napoleon, is to this day generally regarded as a hero even though practically every family in the France of his day lost a son in his wars. The figures for Napoleon�s Russian campaign alone are horrendous. He took 600,000 men into Russia but brought back only 70,000. In terms of loss of life, Napoleon�s wars were every bit as bad for France as Hitler�s wars were for Germany but Hitler is universally (and justly) reviled whereas Napoleon is still admired! Napoleon, however, justified all his actions as extending the French revolution to other lands and this explanation still resounds favourably with today�s Left-leaning intellectuals.

24 August, 2002
New Subheading -- immediately following �GUILT�)

LEFTISM AS A RELIGION

For some people, Leftism appears to work as a sort of religion for atheists. There would appear to be a strong inborn need for religion in human beings. Even in the present skeptical, scientific and materialistic age about half of all Americans are churchgoers and years of indoctrination into atheism by the Communists seem to have left the Church stronger than ever in Russia and Poland. And even among people with no formal religious affiliations, very few are outright atheists. Christians such as Billy Graham sometimes say with some cogency that there is a �God-shaped void� in people. They would have to admit, however that some pretty Satanic things can get packed into that void sometimes.

So Leftism could be seen as a Godless religion -- something that meets the religious needs of those who for various reasons are dissatisfied either with other religions or with supernatural ideas in general. Not all religions have a dominant God or father-figure at their centre (e.g. Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto) and a religion that dispenses with the supernatural altogether does not therefore seem impossibly paradoxical. The identification of Leftism as a religion has often been made and the ability to believe in things that sound good but have very little supportive evidence would certainly seem to constitute a common core between Leftism and other religions. Both Leftists and the religious could, in other words, be seen as the wishful thinkers of the world: A very large throng. And, as a religion originally emanating from the economically successful "Western" democracies, Leftism is typical in being very proselytizing and intolerant of competing religions.

And, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, some might argue that Leftism is now more than ever a secular religion. In other words, now that it is crystal clear how awful really Leftist governments are, only faith could keep anyone still believing in the desirability of Leftism.

And anyone who has spent much time among Leftist intellectuals (As I have. I spent 12 years teaching in a School of Sociology at a major Australian university) will be aware of how the writings of Marx are treated as a form of holy writ. Leftist thinkers constantly involve themselves in nitpicking debates about �What Marx really said�, just as Christian sectarians constantly argue about �What the Bible says�. In our universities, Marxism is undoubtedly a form of theology. So Leftism can even meet people�s need for theology! And anyone who knows their mediaeval history or the history of the Byzantine empire will know how overwhelmingly important theology can sometimes be to human beings.

Interestingly, the most powerful form of Leftist religion would appear to have been Nazism. Nazism was Leftist in that it was explicitly socialist, in that Hitler justified everything in the name of �the people� (Das Volk), in that the Nazi State was all-powerful, in that the Nazi party supervised German industry minutely and in that Hitler and Stalin were initially allies (It was only the Nazi-Soviet pact that enabled Hitler�s conquest of Western Europe. The fuel in the tanks of Hitler�s Panzers as they stormed through France was Soviet fuel). And like any Leftist, Hitler did not like sharing power with the churches or anybody else.

But Hitler was smart enough to make good use of people�s religious inclinations rather than simply oppose them. He did this in two ways: He eventually made peace with the churches as long as the churches did not visibly oppose him. His concordat with the Pope is of course famous in that connection. His own Catholic education and often-expressed Christian beliefs obviously helped with that. So you could eventually be both a good Catholic (for instance) and a good Nazi. And secondly, Nazism itself was also self-consciously religious in that it promoted its celebrations of �Germanic� traditions as an improvement on and alternative to the churches.

And it did that well: Hitler often appealed to God so that was no cause for alarm (unlike atheistic Communism); Nazism had its holy book in the form of �Mein Kampf�; It had saints such as Horst Wessel; It had magnificent religious ceremonies such as its constant torchlight parades, huge rallies and impressive loyalty oath ceremonies; It had inspiring marching songs by way of hymns. It had its Messianic and undoubtedly inspiring leader in the person of Hitler. And the way the Hitler Youth and the Volksturm fought to the bitter end in Berlin is certainly the sort of committment that most churches could only envy.

23 August, 2002
(New subheading -- immediately following �THE CHURCH�)

JESUS: LEFTIST OR RIGHTIST?

Whether Jesus was of what we would now call the Left or the Right is of course very much an old chestnut. As Leftists are usually anti-religious in general, however, the argument usually goes by default to the conservatives. The Leftists do not want anything to do with any religious figure so conservatives claim Jesus as one of their own with little opposition. And that claim is not without reason: Jesus did after all say, �For ye have the poor always with you� (Matthew 26:11) and he did make a point of dining with rich businessmen (Luke 19:1-8) and he did praise entreprenurship and profit (Matthew 25:14-30). And he did rebuke his disciples for proposing to sell their luxury goods and distribute the proceeds to the poor (Matthew 26:10). He denied being a revolutionary (Matthew 5:17) and preached obedience to the law (Matthew 5: 19; Mark 12:17). He preached compromise (Matthew 5:25) and opposed divorce (Matthew 5:32). And Jesus did of course inherit the Jewish view that mankind is in a �fallen� and imperfect state and preached that only faith in him could correct it (Luke 19:10; John 8:7, 32).

On the other hand he did say that it was as hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24) and he did tell a seeker after holiness to first sell all his wordly goods (Matthew 19:21). He did advise �giving freely� and advised against accumulating both money and worldly goods (Matthew, 10: 9,10; 6:19 and 6:31-34). He preached equality among the faithful (Matthew 20:25-28). And he was very much a pacifist (Matthew 5:39). All these latter references, however, clearly have more to do with spiritual guidance than with advice about how to run the affairs of the world.

Nonetheless, the fact that Jesus opposed selfishness and materialism and preached compassion could be seen as consonant with what Leftists advocate. And undoubtedly it is. That is why Leftists advocate it. We are most fortunate that the teachings of Jesus have become deeply ingrained in our culture so that they form at least a large part of the ideals that most of us aspire to even if we often fall far short of living up to those ideals. So if the change- and power-seeking Leftist wants to sound persuasive, the easiest way to do so is to place his appeal squarely within the existing ideals of the society. If we still lived in the pagan world of our ancestors as described (say) in �Beowulf�, he might instead justify his cries for change in terms of what would lead us towards greater glory and fame. But in neither case could we safely conclude that what he says represents his real aims and values. And we can most certainly not conclude that those who preach compassion etc will therefore also practice it when they have the power to do so.

22 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �WHY IS IT?�)

The appeal of Leftism to the average person is simple: The Leftist offers something for nothing. And that is always hard to resist -- fraudulent though it usually is. If the Leftist offers to redistribute somebody else�s wealth into your pocket, that is one hell of an appealling scam. So before considering what it is that causes a person to be a Leftist it should be well noted that a person who votes for a Leftist party may not necessarily himself be much of a Leftist. He may vote for the Leftist party simply because the Leftists appear to offer him personally a better deal. The Leftist's constant hypocritical preaching of equality does sometimes succeed in creating the impression that the Leftists will manage to give poorer or working class people a bigger slice of the national cake -- and poorer people must obviously find that at least initially appealing.

21 August, 2002
(Under the heading �LEFTISM, RACISM and HISTORY�)

Nonetheless, the way contemporary �Western� Leftists constantly hurl the labels �Nazi� and �Fascist� at anybody they disagree with suggests almost an obsession with Nazism. Such an obsession is also suggested by the way TV programs about Hitler and Nazism always seem to be available from our Left-dominated media. Programs about Stalin�s Russia are as rare as hen�s teeth by comparison.

This continuing Leftist obsession with Nazism might make some sense if Nazism were uniquely evil but, horrible and massive though the Nazi crimes were, they were anything but unique. For a start, government by tyranny is, if anything, normal in human history. And both antisemitism and eugenic theories were normal in prewar Europe. Further back in history, even Martin Luther wrote a most vicious and well-known attack on the Jews. And Nazi theories of German racial superiority differed from then-customary British beliefs in British racial superiority mainly in that the British views were implemented with typical conservative moderation whereas the Nazi views were implemented with typical Leftist fanaticism and brutality (cf. Stalin and Pol Pot). And the Nazi and Russian pogroms differed mainly in typically greater German thoroughness and efficiency. And waging vicious wars and slaughtering people �en masse� because of their supposed group identity have been regrettably common phenomena both before and after Hitler (e.g. Stalin�s massacres of Kulaks and Ukrainians, the unspeakable Pol Pot�s massacres of all educated Cambodians, Peru�s �Shining Path�, the Nepalese Marxists, the Tamil Tigers and the universal Communist mass executions of �class-enemies�). Both Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are usually �credited� with murdering far more �class enemies� than Hitler executed Jews.

It seems an obvious conclusion, then, that the constant Leftist excoriation of Hitler and the Nazis stems not from the unique horribleness of Nazism but has as its main aim an effort at camouflage -- an effort to disguise or hide from public awareness the real kinship that exists between Nazism and other forms of Leftism. They just cannot afford to have people realize that ALL the great mass-murders of the 20th century were the product of Leftism.

20 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �LEFTIST RACISM�)

That racism lurks just beneath the surface in Leftists is also shown vividly by their constant adoption of double standards when speaking of populations of European and non-European origins. There is always an acceptance of barbarity among non-Europeans and a corresponding expectation that people of European origin �should know better�. For instance, Leftists constantly cast up the undoubted evils of (European) Nazism so that there can hardly be anyone in the Western world who is unaware of those evils. But how often do Leftists excoriate the simultaneous and arguably greater Japanese atrocities against the Chinese? I have never heard a single Leftist do so. And Western countries are often criticized by Leftists for their �harsh� treatment of illegal immigrants (treatment which rarely leads to any deaths) but we hear hardly a word about the mini-holocausts that are occurring all the time in Africa. Certainly no Leftist that I have ever heard condemns such holocausts. If they do it is nothing compared to the attacks that they mount on the much more benign countries of European origin. Clearly, Leftists have an underlying view of the difference between the �civilized� and �savage� races that is little different from the views of such heroes of past British Imperialism as Rudyard Kipling.

18 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �LEFTIST RACISM�)

A more general point in this connection is made by Dalrymple (2002): �Socialist and anti-Semite alike seek an all-encompassing explanation of the imperfection of the world, and for the persistence of poverty and injustice: and each thinks he has found an answer. There are other connections between left-wing thought and anti-Semitism (usually believed to be a disease of the Right alone). The liberal intellectual who laments the predominance of dead white males in the college syllabus or the lack of minority representation in the judiciary uses fundamentally the same argument as the anti-Semite who objects to the prominence of Jews in the arts, sciences, professions, and in commerce. They both assume that something must be amiss � a conspiracy � if any human group is over- or under-represented in any human activity, achievement, or institution.�

17 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �PROCRUSTES�)

Thankfully, Leftists in the economically successful "Western" democracies have never gained the power that Stalin had. Just as the anarchic savagery and bloodlust of the French revolution made the idea of revolution obnoxious throughout the rest of Europe for over 100 years (until 1917), so the murderous brutality and oppressiveness of Lenin and Stalin immediately fostered great and reasonable distrust of Leftism in aware populations worldwide and thus placed some limits on further Leftist access to power. Its inherent destructiveness makes Leftism self-limiting and self-defeating in many ways -- but only if people take note of what Leftist ideas actually lead to.

Despite that, however, Leftists in the �Western� world are still numerous and vocal and thus still do an impressive Procrustean job in many ways. Perhaps the best known example of that is the way they have succeeded in "dumbing down" our educational systems.

More generally, their constant refusal to acknowledge any differences between people or groups of people tends to obstruct society from dealing in any way with those differences, no matter how important they may be. This constant lack of realism makes Leftists significant enemies of rationality.

A rather clear example of the current insane pursuit of at least nominal equality is the way that almost all students in some places now pass their final high-school examinations. In Britain in 2002, for instance, 94% of A-level students passed and the UK educational authorities, far from being embarrassed, asserted that they hope soon to get 100% of students passing (BBC Thursday, 15 August, 2002, GMT 04:29). This does of course achieve the Leftist ideal of Procrustean equality but at the expense of making an A-level pass completely uninformative, meaningless and useless. Despite such cosmetic and obscurantist nonsense, reality still asserts itself of course. As the bare certificate has now become meaningless, students subsequently have to be assessed in more difficult and complicated ways -- either by use of additional tests or by use of the relative marks each student got within the examination.

16 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �LEFTISM, RACISM and HISTORY�)

There is much more in history that is very interesting for the light it throws on the Leftist attitude to race:

Before World War II, anti-racism was certainly NOT the mainstay of Leftist doctrine that it is today. Who was it who said: "What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money."? No. It was not Adolf Hitler but Karl Marx himself (Marx, 1844). See Blanchard (1984) for a full discussion of Marx's antisemitism.

And from 1901 to 1966 the Australian government had an official policy known as the �White Australia� policy -- a policy which forbad non-white immigration into Australia. In other words, for most of the time that �slegs blankies� ruled as the guiding policy in South Africa, its English equivalent (�whites only�) ruled in Australia too. And who were always the most ardent supporters of that policy? The Australian Labor Party -- Australia�s major Leftist party. It was an Australian Labor Party leader (Arthur Calwell) who became famous for his remark that, "Two Wongs don't make a white". The policy was eventually abolished by a conservative government under Harold Holt. So Leftists can be as racist as anyone else if it suits them.

14 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �HUMAN NATURE�)

This conservative (and scientific) rejection of the Leftist idea that human beings are infinitely malleable does of course pose a major threat to the Leftist's assumptions, theories and programmes and it is one that the Leftist cannot really rebut so the usual Leftist response is simply an ad hominem one: To abuse and demonize conservatives for lacking "compassion". Abuse takes the place of argument (Krauthammer, 2002).

12 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �THE CHURCH�)

Amusingly, the normal Leftist rejection of conventional Western religion does not seem to apply to primitive religions. American Indian beliefs, for instance, are normally treated with great respect and held up as wise by Leftists. Why? Presumably as just another way of attacking the churches. We are asked to believe that the Protestant Christianity which created the modern world is somehow inferior for some unknown reason. Powerful religion has to be attacked but non-threatening religion is OK.

10 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �RACISM NORMAL?�)

Edmund Burke (1790) has some claims to being the founding theoretician of conservatism and he claimed that loyalty to one's group, tribe, nation etc is a basic human instinct. And the famous military theorist, Von Clausewitz (1972) noted over 150 years ago: that "Even the most civilized of peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other" (p. 76). So what does modern social science tell us?

Let us look initially at the literature of academic psychology in particular: Brown (1986) surveyed the large body of extant psychological research on the question and concluded that group loyalty and group identification are rooted in "universal ineradicable psychological processes". In other words, group loyalty is not only normal but universal. And another psychologist particularly active in research into feelings of group identity concluded: "Not only is ingroup favouritism .... not related to outgroup dislike, it also does not seem causally dependant on denigration of the outgroup" (Turner, 1978, p. 249). See also Brewer & Collins (1981, p. 350) and Brown, Condor, Mathews, Wade & Williams (1986).

And this is moderate compared with what can be found elsewhere in the social science literature. For instance, Hechter (1986) claims that all racism is rational while the prominent French anthropologist Levi-Straus (1983) not only claims that ethnocentrism is universal and inescapable but also claims that it is desirable -- on the grounds that it promotes cultural diversity. And the sociobiologists, of course (e.g. Mihalyi, 1984/5; Van den Berghe, 1981) regard ingroup favouritism as universal not only to man but to all social animals. Perhaps most extreme of all, Volkan (1985 & 1988) says that we all actually NEED group enemies and allies.

8 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �LEFTIST DOCTRINE�)

But how do we explain the fact that it only in relatively recent times that anti-racism has become a mainstay of Leftist agitation? Again some history helps: The "Levelling" idea that has always characterized Leftists had a very long history before Marx espoused it. Such different people as the Christian fundamentalist �Levellers� in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and the slave-owning gentlemen who framed and espoused the American Declaration of Independence were attracted by the idea of equality. The latter therefore even incorporated into their Declaration an assertion that it was an obvious truth that "all men are created equal".

"ALL" men? So blacks and whites are equal too? No. Believers in equality have always had to be good at ignoring reality and the American declarers had little trouble in reconciling equality with slavery -- with what most people might think was its diametric opposite! How did they and others after them do it ? They did it quite easily: Long before Hitler made it his central policy, the people of the world were for many thinkers divided up between "Menschen" (men) and "Untermenschen" (sub-men) and equality obviously did not apply to "Untermenschen". So when the Hitlerian catastrophe thoroughly discredited and made obnoxious the idea of classifying certain races as being sub-human and hence outside the magic circle of "equality", Leftists found it expedient to hop on to the anti-racist bandwagon -- no doubt with some relief. It did make their advocacy a lot simpler.

Clearly, however, their anti-racism is nonetheless mere opportunism: History shows that they have no intrinsic committment to it. When racism was generally regarded as sound and reasonable they were for it. Now that Hitler has made the very word obnoxious, they are against it.

6 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �WHY EQUALITY?�)

First, a little history: The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 under Lenin has had immense significance for politics since then but there were also three prior political revolutions that still have some modern lessons, The English revolution of 1642, The American revolution of 1776 and the French revolution of 1789. The British and American revolutions were essentially "conservative" revolutions designed to preserve traditional democratic rights and liberties and remove tyrannies but the French revolution was very different:

The French revolution is probably the earliest clear example of Leftism at work -- a vast social change that attempted to destroy all that went before it (even the traditional calendar!) and replace traditional arrangements by totally new ones that were grounded only in theory and which in fact very rapidly turned out to constitute a new and terrifying tyranny. Certainly the French revolution is the earliest clear example of high-minded ideals being used in some almost incomprehensible way as an excuse for a long and bloodthirsty reign of terror -- a reign of terror that consumed not only the enemies but also many of the friends of the revolution.

And "equality" was of course one of those high-minded ideals. The French revolutionaries would appear to have the distinction of being the first to show that in some mysterious way one can at the same time believe in equality and practice tyranny! And, in an omen of Lenin and Stalin to come, that great child of the revolution, Napoleon, saw no contradiction in running a vicious police state while at the same time going to the trouble of actually enshrining in law the principle that all men are equal!!

4 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �THE NEW LEFT�)

Less of a laughing matter is the way political correctness can actually endanger lives. Take, for instance, the case of a UK surgeon reported in the UK Daily Telegraph of July 23rd, 2002 who had to stop in the middle of surgery because the immigrant nurses employed by Britain's cash-strapped National Health Service could not understand enough English to follow his instructions. He filed a complaint claiming that patient's lives were being put at risk by nurses who do not understand English. The immediate result? A threat of disciplinary action against the surgeon for racism!

2 August, 2002
(Under the heading: �THE CHURCH�)

But moral codes are onerous and Communism offered an escape from them. If all men were to become brothers and all resources were to be shared freely, fathers would not be needed for anything more than the act of procreation itself. This vision was of course a great attraction for both men and women and Leftists were always in the vanguard of sexual liberation. Sex sells and it certainly sold Leftism to many.

Thus Leftists were well-prepared when the advent of the contraceptive pill kicked away the practical foundations of conventional sexual morality. They were ready to justify what had just become practical -- irresponsible sex. So they seemed to have come into their own at that time (in the 1960s).

The pill soon caused libertinism to spread very widely, however, and sexual permissiveness soon therefore ceased to be characteristically Leftist. The longer term effect of the pill was in fact to deprive Leftists of one of their strongest sources of appeal. They are no longer the only libertines. Effective contraception has in fact changed social mores so much that it is now permissiveness which is conventional.

30 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �THE NEW LEFT�)

If Leftists were sincere in their advocacy of the interests of the poor, they would in fact be urging MORE globalization. The biggest single remaining barrier to globalization in the world today is agricultural protectionism -- preventing farm products being imported by way of tariffs, subsidies and other barriers. Such protectionism is practiced principally by rich countries (Japan, the USA and the European Union) and hurts most the poor countries of the world who rely principally on primary production and exports for their livelihood. One of the few ways poor countries could get richer is by producing and selling primary products to us but it is the LACK of globalization in agriculture which prevents them from doing so. But when did we hear Leftists arguing for more globalization? That they do not shows the hypocrisy of their claim to care about the poor.

It also shows something of Leftist motivation that their opposition to free trade generally puts them in league with big business and conservative farmers -- groups that they would normally anathematize. Obviously, being protestors matters more to Leftists than whom or what the protest is in aid of.

28 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �PSYCHOLOGICAL LEFTISM�)

Envy is a very common thing and most of us have probably at some time envied someone but, for someone with the Leftist's strong ego needs, envy becomes a hatred and a consuming force that easily accounts for the ferocious brutality of Communist movements and the economically destructive policies (such as punitively high taxation, price controls and over-regulation generally) employed by Leftists in resolutely democratic societies. So the economic destruction and general impoverishment typically brought about by Leftists is not as irrational as it at first seems. The Leftist actually wants that. Making others poorer is usually an infinitely higher priority for him than doing anybody any good. One suspects that most individual Leftists realize that no revolution or social transformation is ever going to put them personally into a position of wealth or power so the destruction of the wealth and power and satisfaction of those who already have it must be the main thing they hope to get out of supporting Leftist politics. For a fuller account of the enormously destructive nature of envy see Schoeck (1969).

26 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �GUILT�)

There is however one variation on the Leftist guilt theme that might have more weight to it: The idea that some people want to be compassionate or believe that they should be compassionate but know that they really are not. This could perhaps arise from pressures put on them during their upbringing or from formal and informal pressures exerted on them by those they associate with in (say) their churches. Knowing that they themselves lack compassionate feelings, they do the next best thing and advocate loudly that the State (i.e. the taxpayer) should be more compassionate and thus absolve them from having to do anything compassionate personally. They might also hope that by loudly proclaiming their "compassionate" political views, their lack of personal compassion will be overlooked. This could explain the Leftist politics of many clergy in the Church of England (and in associated Anglican churches worldwide). Some "limousine liberals" could also fall into this category.

There is some support for this idea in the survey finding that the Americans who give the highest percentage of their income to charity are the very rich whereas those who give least are Leftists and liberals (Cooke, 2002). But this should not be surprising. From the French revolutionaries to Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, Leftist "compassion" has never been evident in their deeds!

Anyone who thinks that claims of compassion necessarily indicate compassion might also consider the example of California's Rev. Jim Jones with his Leftist "People's Temple". The Rev. Jones was much opposed to racism and devoted to equality and compassion for the disadvantaged but still managed to massacre hundreds of his followers in Guyana (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~remoore/jonestown ). Jim Jones' actions make no sense as indicators of real compassion but make a lot of sense as indicating a frustrated love of power: Very Leftist!

And the many Leftists, even US Leftists, who, in the name of "anti-imperialism", actually voiced approval for the murderous onslaught on New York's World Trade Centre on Sept. 11, 2001 certainly showed their degree of compassion clearly enough. The great influence that US culture undoubtedly has on the rest of the world is seen as sufficient to justify the murder of thousands of US citizens innocently going about their business. It is again clear that a hatred of any power but their own is what drives Leftists, not compassion.

22 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �CONSERVATIVES AND NEO-LIBERALISM�)

And perhaps Britain's most famous conservative thinker of the 19th century, who was also one of her most notable Prime Ministers, was Benjamin Disraeli. It is he who is often credited with creating the modern British Conservative party and he certainly had a large role in causing his political party to be known as the Conservative party rather than the Tory party. He was a constitutional traditionalist, a great monarchist and imperialist and was responsible for declaring Queen Victoria "Empress of India". Yet he was a great friend of British working-class people too -- extending the vote to them in 1867, bringing in legal limits on how many hours per day they could be asked to work, limiting the age at which they could start work, bring in health regulations and for the first time giving some legal protection to labour unions. He saw his duty as Prime Minister as: "to secure the social welfare of the people." He saw his guiding principles as being not only to "maintain the institutions of the country" -- which he saw as an essential barrier to tyranny -- but also "to elevate the condition of the people". And despite often being accused of megalomania and mere opportunism, he refused both a Dukedom and burial in Westminster Abbey.

20 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �IN THE WEST�)

In summary, bitter experience has shown that Leftists in power are very dangerous and destructive people. Where their power is effectively unchecked, they generally seems to resort sooner or later to mass murder (as in the case of the French revolutionaries, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Jim Jones and many Communist regimes and movements worldwide) and where they are partially thwarted by strong democratic traditions and institutions, they at least bring about large-scale impoverishment (as in post-independence India and pre-Thatcher Britain). By contrast, conservatives just muddle along with piecemeal reforms that don't require them to murder anybody. So giving any power to Leftists is a most dangerous thing to do and working to prevent that happening is a matter of no small importance.

18 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �MILITARY DICTATORS?�)

Historically, most of the world has been ruled by military men and their successors (Sargon II of Assyria, Alexander of Macedon, Caesar, Augustus, Constantine, Charlemagne, Frederick II of Prussia etc.) so it seems unlikely but perhaps the main point to note here is that the Hispanic dictatorships of the 20th century were very often created as a response to a perceived threat of a Communist takeover. This is particularly clear in the case of Spain, Chile and Argentina. They were an attempt to fight fire with fire. In Argentina of the 60s and 70s, for instance, Leftist "urban guerillas" were very active -- blowing up anyone they disapproved of. The nice, mild, moderate Anglo-Saxon response to such depredations would have been to endure the deaths and disruptions concerned and use police methods to trace the perpetrators and bring them to trial. Much of the world is more fiery than that, however, and the Argentine generals certainly were. They became impatient with the slow-grinding wheels of democracy and its apparent impotence in the face of the Leftist revolutionaries. They therefore seized power and instituted a reign of terror against the Leftist revolutionaries that was as bloody, arbitrary and indiscriminate as what the Leftists had inflicted. In a word, they used military methods to deal with the Leftist attackers. So the nature of these regimes was only incidentally conservative. What they were was essentially military. We have to range further than the Hispanic generals, therefore, if we are to find out what is quintessentially conservative.

14 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �GERMAN ORIGINS�)

The important thing here again is to see things with an historian's eye and realize that recent times are atypical. Right up until Bismarck's ascendancy in the late 19th century, Germany was remarkable for its degree of decentralization. What we now know as Germany was once always comprised of hundreds of independent States (kingdoms, principalities, Hanseatic cities etc.) of all shapes and sizes: States that were in fact so much in competition with one another in various ways that they were not infrequently at war with one-another.

And it was of course only the fractionated and competing centres of power existing in mediaeval Germany that enabled the successful emergence there of the most transforming and anti-authority event of the last 1000 years: The Protestant Reformation. Despite the almost immediate and certainly widespread popularity of his new teachings among Germans, Luther ran great risks and would almost certainly have been burnt at the stake like Savonarola, Hus and his other predecessors in religious rebellion had it not been for his (and our) good fortune that he was a Saxon. His Prince, Frederick III ("The Wise") of Saxony gave him constant protection. As one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick was strong enough and independent enough to protect Luther from Pope, from Emperor and from other German potentates.

10 July, 2002
(Under the heading: �DENIAL OF REALITY�)

"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." (H.L. Mencken)

There would seem to be some possibility that excess ego can be curbed. The traditional Christian preaching of humility certainly assumes that. It is doubtful, however, that another underpinning of Leftism can be much influenced: Denial of reality.

Denial is perhaps best known through the work of Sigmund Freud as a classical neurotic symptom or coping mechanism. Instead of dealing with uncomfortable truths, the neurotic acts as if those truths simply do not exist. This is, of course, very maladaptive and creates at least as many problems as it solves.

Sadly, however, it would seem that reality denial is far from limited to psychiatric cases. Denial would appear to be in fact much more common even than excess egotism. Human beings generally do not handle reality well. That is why humans are such a drug-using species. Whether it be alcohol, cannabis, opiates, Khat, cocaine, nicotine or merely caffeine, few of us seem able to face life without chemical crutches. Straight reality is generally too much for us.

Religion too is essentially a reality denying exercise. As Marx famously said, it is the "opium of the people". Those of us with ultimately Judaic traditions delude ourselves into believing that somewhere there must exist some real counterpart to the omnipotent and benevolent father we thought we had in our early childhood and those of us influenced by Eastern religions generally believe that our elder family members continue to be able to help us even after death. We invent imaginary helpers and benefactors to replace the lack of real ones.

But WHY are human beings so uncomfortable with reality? Why do they use so many means to "escape" it? Again it probably goes back to more primitive times when reality was very oppressive and dispiriting. Only those who could escape reality in some way had the heart to carry on. So a talent for ignoring unpleasant truths was adaptive. In the modern world, however, reality is much more benign and, as Freud saw, denying it can easily descend into the psychopathological.

So any attack on the reality-denying habits of Leftists would appear doomed to failure. Even such an overwhelming reality as the utter collapse of the world's 70 year experiment with Communism caused them not at all to abandon their equalitarian mania but only to change their focus somewhat.

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THIS BLOG IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY:
The blog entries above are all incorporated into a larger story as they are made. The larger story is a comprehensive article about the psychological roots of Leftism. If you like the individual blog entries, you may like to read the larger whole of which they form part. This larger whole is to be found in two parts (of about 25 pages each) at:
http://jonjayray1.blogspot.com and http://jonjayray2.blogspot.com.
If you want to see where a particular blog entry fits into the full article, you should find the headings given in the blog helpful. Otherwise, use Ctrl+F to do a search for the text you want. Happy thinking!
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Correspondence on any matter raised above is very welcome.
Email: jonjayray@hotmail.com .

List of relevant sites:
http://jonjayray.blogspot.com (This site)
http://jonjayray1.blogspot.com (The full theory, part 1)
http://jonjayray2.blogspot.com (The full theory, part 2)
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~jonjayray (Many earlier papers by John Ray)
http://heghinian.blogspot.com (A supplement on Elitism by another writer)
http://geocities.com/jonjayray (A picture of John Ray -- not for the fainthearted)
http://whatareleftists.blogspot.com (The most comprehensive published version of the theory)
http://statusquoleft.blogspot.com (A much briefer and more �academic� presentation of the basic theory)

Other interesting sites:

http://englandssword.blogspot.com
http://reason.com
http://www.isteve.com
http://weeklyjames.blogspot.com
http://frontpagemag.com
http://rightwingnews.com
http://www.stephenpollard.net
http://brothersjudd.blogspot.com
http://www.instapundit.com
http://www.techcentralstation.com
http://www.the politburo.com

Finis

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Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

IN BRIEF:

It's the shared hatred of the rest of us that unites Islamists and the Left.

American liberals don't love America. They despise it. All they love is their own fantasy of what America could become. They are false patriots.

The Democratic Party: Con-men elected by the ignorant and the arrogant

The Republicans are the gracious side of American politics. It is the Democrats who are the nasty party

The characteristic emotion of the Leftist is not envy. It's rage

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" -- Genesis 12:3

My (Gentile) opinion of antisemitism: The Jews are the best we've got so killing them is killing us.

I have always liked the story of Gideon (See Judges chapters 6 to 8) and it is surely no surprise that in the present age Israel is the Gideon of nations: Few in numbers but big in power and impact.

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." -- Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” -- Thomas Jefferson

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power" -- Bertrand Russell

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.
If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)
If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Leftists are classic weak characters. They dish out abuse by the bucketload but cannot take it when they get it back. Witness the Loughner hysteria.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

The Leftist motto: "I love humanity. It's just people I can't stand"

Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left.

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

Some Leftist hatred arises from the fact that they blame "society" for their own personal problems and inadequacies

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

Leftist policies are candy-coated rat poison that may appear appealing at first, but inevitably do a lot of damage to everyone impacted by them.

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among people who should know better, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there'd be genocide.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

“Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics.” -- C.J. Keyser

“Hell is paved with good intentions" -- Boswell’s Life of Johnson of 1775

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state – capitalism frees them.

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

Following the Sotomayor precedent, I would hope that a wise older white man such as myself with the richness of that experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than someone who hasn’t lived that life.

IQ and ideology: Most academics are Left-leaning. Why? Because very bright people who have balls go into business, while very bright people with no balls go into academe. I did both with considerable success, which makes me a considerable rarity. Although I am a born academic, I have always been good with money too. My share portfolio even survived the GFC in good shape. The academics hate it that bright people with balls make more money than them.

If I were not an atheist, I would believe that God had a sense of humour. He gave his chosen people (the Jews) enormous advantages -- high intelligence and high drive -- but to keep it fair he deprived them of something hugely important too: Political sense. So Jews to this day tend very strongly to be Leftist -- even though the chief source of antisemitism for roughly the last 200 years has been the political Left!

And the other side of the coin is that Jews tend to despise conservatives and Christians. Yet American fundamentalist Christians are the bedrock of the vital American support for Israel, the ultimate bolthole for all Jews. So Jewish political irrationality seems to be a rather good example of the saying that "The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away". There are many other examples of such perversity (or "balance"). The sometimes severe side-effects of most pharmaceutical drugs is an obvious one but there is another ethnic example too, a rather amusing one. Chinese people are in general smart and patient people but their rate of traffic accidents in China is about 10 times higher than what prevails in Western societies. They are brilliant mathematicians and fearless business entrepreneurs but at the same time bad drivers!

The above is good testimony to the accuracy of the basic conservative insight that almost anything in human life is too complex to be reduced to any simple rule and too complex to be reduced to any rule at all without allowance for important exceptions to the rule concerned

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

Eugenio Pacelli, a righteous Gentile, a true man of God and a brilliant Pope

Conservatives, on the other hand could be antisemitic on entirely rational grounds: Namely, the overwhelming Leftism of the Diaspora Jewish population as a whole. Because they judge the individual, however, only a tiny minority of conservative-oriented people make such general judgments. The longer Jews continue on their "stiff-necked" course, however, the more that is in danger of changing. The children of Israel have been a stiff necked people since the days of Moses, however, so they will no doubt continue to vote with their emotions rather than their reason.

Fortunately for America, though, liberal Jews there are rapidly dying out through intermarriage and failure to reproduce. And the quite poisonous liberal Jews of Israel are not much better off. Judaism is slowly returning to Orthodoxy and the Orthodox tend to be conservative.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amendment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.

"Some action that is unconstitutional has much to recommend it" -- Elena Kagan, nominated to SCOTUS by Obama

The U.S. Constitution is neither "living" nor dead. It is fixed until it is amended. But amending it is the privilege of the people, not of politicians or judges

The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.

Frank Sulloway, the anti-scientist

The basic aim of all bureaucrats is to maximize their funding and minimize their workload

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

I imagine that few of my readers will understand it, but I am an unabashed monarchist. And, as someone who was born and bred in a monarchy and who still lives there (i.e. Australia), that gives me no conflicts at all. In theory, one's respect for the monarchy does not depend on who wears the crown but the impeccable behaviour of the present Queen does of course help perpetuate that respect. Aside from my huge respect for the Queen, however, my favourite member of the Royal family is the redheaded Prince Harry. The Royal family is of course a military family and Prince Harry is a great example of that. As one of the world's most privileged people, he could well be an idle layabout but instead he loves his life in the army. When his girlfriend Chelsy ditched him because he was so often away, Prince Harry said: "I love Chelsy but the army comes first". A perfect military man! I doubt that many women would understand or approve of his attitude but perhaps my own small army background powers my approval of that attitude.

I imagine that most Americans might find this rather mad -- but I believe that a constitutional Monarchy is the best form of government presently available. Can a libertarian be a Monarchist? I think so -- and prominent British libertarian Sean Gabb seems to think so too! Long live the Queen! (And note that Australia ranks well above the USA on the Index of Economic freedom. Heh!)

Throughout Europe there is an association between monarchism and conservatism. It is a little sad that American conservatives do not have access to that satisfaction. So even though Australia is much more distant from Europe (geographically) than the USA is, Australia is in some ways more of an outpost of Europe than America is! Mind you: Australia is not very atypical of its region. Australia lies just South of Asia -- and both Japan and Thailand have greatly respected monarchies. And the demise of the Cambodian monarchy was disastrous for Cambodia

Throughout the world today, possession of a U.S. or U.K. passport is greatly valued. I once shared that view. Developments in recent years have however made me profoundly grateful that I am a 5th generation Australian. My Australian passport is a door into a much less oppressive and much less messed-up place than either the USA or Britain

Some ancient wisdom for Leftists: "Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself over wise: Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" -- Ecclesiastes 7:16

People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter: The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.

Jesse Jackson: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." There ARE important racial differences.

Some Jimmy Carter wisdom: "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "there's going to be a downward turning."

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy!

The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans!

Did William Zantzinger kill poor Hattie Carroll?

America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism. The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted.

The "steamroller" above who got steamrollered by his own hubris. Spitzer is a warning of how self-destructive a vast ego can be -- and also of how destructive of others it can be.

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Big business is not your friend. As Adam Smith said: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary

“How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.” ― John Maynard Keynes

Some wisdom from "Bron" Waugh: "The purpose of politics is to help them [politicians] overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power"

"There are countless horrible things happening all over the country, and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible"

The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to Parliament [or Congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever"

"It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled"

As well as being an academic, I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

A real army story here

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak. Some might conclude that I must therefore be a very confused sort of atheist but I can assure everyone that I do not feel the least bit confused. The New Testament is a lighthouse that has illumined the thinking of all sorts of men and women and I am deeply grateful that it has shone on me.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

Most teenagers have sporting and movie posters on their bedroom walls. At age 14 I had a map of Taiwan on my wall.

"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit

I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.

It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in my MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

"Intellectual" = Leftist dreamer. I have more publications in the academic journals than almost all "public intellectuals" but I am never called an intellectual and nor would I want to be. Call me a scholar or an academic, however, and I will accept either as a just and earned appellation

My academic background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here

I completed the work for my Ph.D. at the end of 1970 but the degree was not awarded until 1974 -- due to some academic nastiness from Seymour Martin Lipset and Fred Emery. A conservative or libertarian who makes it through the academic maze has to be at least twice as good as the average conformist Leftist. Fortunately, I am a born academic.

Despite my great sympathy and respect for Christianity, I am the most complete atheist you could find. I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful. I am not at all original in that view, of course. Such views are particularly associated with the noted German philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Unlike Carnap, however, none of my wives have committed suicide

Very occasionally in my writings I make reference to the greats of analytical philosophy such as Carnap and Wittgenstein. As philosophy is a heavily Leftist discipline however, I have long awaited an attack from some philosopher accusing me of making coat-trailing references not backed by any real philosophical erudition. I suppose it is encouraging that no such attacks have eventuated but I thought that I should perhaps forestall them anyway -- by pointing out that in my younger days I did complete three full-year courses in analytical philosophy (at 3 different universities!) and that I have had papers on mainstream analytical philosophy topics published in academic journals

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and there is JUST ONE saying of Hitler's that I rather like. It may not even be original to him but it is found in chapter 2 of Mein Kampf (published in 1925): "Widerstaende sind nicht da, dass man vor ihnen kapituliert, sondern dass man sie bricht". The equivalent English saying is "Difficulties exist to be overcome" and that traces back at least to the 1920s -- with attributions to Montessori and others. Hitler's metaphor is however one of smashing barriers rather than of politely hopping over them and I am myself certainly more outspoken than polite. Hitler's colloquial Southern German is notoriously difficult to translate but I think I can manage a reasonable translation of that saying: "Resistance is there not for us to capitulate to but for us to break". I am quite sure that I don't have anything like that degree of determination in my own life but it seems to me to be a good attitude in general anyway

COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.

You can email me here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR"

MY OTHER SITES

TONGUE TIED

GREENIE WATCH

GUN WATCH

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL

EYE ON BRITAIN

IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC

PARALIPOMENA

SOME MEMOIRS

MARX & ENGELS

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY

RECIPES

OF INTEREST

OF INTEREST (2)

Of Interest 3

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here

Mirror for "Dissecting Leftism"
Alt archives
Longer Academic Papers
Johnray links
Academic home page
Academic Backup Page
General Backup
General Backup 2

Selected reading

MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM

CONSERVATISM AS HERESY

Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
Leftist Racism
Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.

Cautionary blogs about big Australian organizations:

TELSTRA
OPTUS
VODAFONE
AGL
St. George bank
Bank of Queensland
Queensland Police
Australian police news
QANTAS, a dying octopus

INTERESTING BLOGS by others
(My frequent reads are starred)

10 o'clock scholar
Agitator*
AMCGLTD
American Thinker
ASTUTE BLOGGERS
Baby Troll
Bad Eagle
Belmont Club*
Betsy's Page
Bill Keezer
Blackfive
Bleeding Brain
BLOGGER NEWS
Blowhards
Bob McCarty
Booker Rising
Brian Leiter scrutinized
Brothers Judd*
Brussels Journal
Bureaucrash
Candle in dark
Catallarchy*
Classical Values
Clayton Cramer*
Climate audit
Climate science
Colby Cosh
Cold Fury
Common-sense & Wonder*
Community Pride Childcare
(Clearwater, Florida)
Confront the Left
Conservative Grapevine
Conservative Oasis
Conservative Voice
Conservatives Anonymous
Critical Mass
Cronaca*
Daily Caller
Danegerus
Dead Cat Bounce
Dean's World
Dhimmi Watch
Discover the networks
Discriminations
Dodge Blog
Dr Helen
Dr Sanity
Drunkablog
Ed Driscoll
Dyspepsia
Eddy Rants
Electric Venom
Endiana
Enter Stage Right
Eugene Undergound
Evangelical Ecologist
Fighting in the Shade
Fourth Rail
Free Patriot
Gates of Vienna
Gay and Right
Gene Expression*
Ghost of Flea
Global warming & Climate
Gold Dog
Grumpy Old Sod
Hack Wilson
Hall of Record
Heretical Ideas
Hitler's Leftism
Hugh Hewitt
Hummers & Cigarettes
IMAO
Icecap
Inductivist
Instapunk
Intellectual Conservative
Interested Participant
Jihad Watch
Jim Kalb
Junk Food science
Junk Science
Just One Minute
KBJ
Knowledge is Power
Ladybird Deed
La Shawn
Laudator
Libertyphile
Lone Wacko
Lubos Motl
Luskin
MA firearm safety
Main Street Radical
Mangan
Margaret Thatcher Foundation
Maverick Philosopher
Medicine World
Michelle Malkin
Moderate Voice
Moorewatch
National Center
National Scene
Neo Con Blogger
Never Yet Melted
New Zeal
Northeastern Intelligence Network
Not PC
On the Right Side
Orator
Overlawyered
Parable Man
ParaPundit*
Pedestrian Infidel
Poli Pundit
Prof Bainbridge
Promethean Antagonist
Qando
Qohel
Random Observations
Rand Simberg
Random Jottings
Red State
Rhodey
Rhymes with Right
Right Nation
Right Thinking
Right Wing news
Roadkill
Ron Hebron
Rottweiler
Schansberg
SCSU Scholars*
Sharp Blades
Sharp Knife
Should Know
Shrinkwrapped
Silent Running
Smallest Minority
Squander 2
Steve Sailer
Stop the ACLU
Stuart Buck
Talking Head
Tim Worstall
Truth and consequences
Two-Four Net
Urban Conservative
Urgent Agenda
Vdare blog
View from Right
Viking Pundit
Vodka Pundit
Watt's up with that
Western Standard
Bill Whittle
What If
WICKED THOUGHTS*
Wiki Law
Winds of Change
Wizbang
World of Reason
World Terrorism news

Education Blogs

Early Childhood Education
Education Bug
Eduwonk
Joanne Jacobs*
Marc Miyake*

Economics Blogs

Adam Smith
Arnold Kling
Chicago Boyz
Cafe Hayek
Econopundit
Environmental Economics
Jane Galt
S. Karlson
D. Luskin
Marginal Revolution
Mises Inst.

Australian Blogs

A E Brain
Brookes News
Catallaxy
Fortress Australia
Kev Gillett
Hissink File
ICJS*
Oz Conservative
Slattery
Tim Blair
WESTERN HEART*
Cyclone's Sketchblog

England

Anglo Austrian
Burning our Money
Campaign Against Political Correctness
England Project
Norm Geras
House of Dumb
IQ & PC
Limbic Nutrition
Majority Rights*
NHS Doctor
Policeman
Samizdata
Sean Gabb
Sterling Times
Englishman's Castle

Scotland

Freedom & Whisky
A Place to Stand

ISRAEL

IsraPundit
Steven Plaut
Think Israel

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here

Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

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