LEFTISM AS IRRATIONAL RAGE

How sad it must be to be a Leftist. They are so devoid of rationality and logic that, when someone disagrees with them, all they can do is spew abuse. A recent comment by a Leftist blogger (Brian MacKenzie, a.k.a. "Liberal Avenger") on one of my posts is a case in point -- a rather lengthy post with not a shred of rational argument in it -- just sustained hate-speech. Brian has obviously learnt nothing since my last comment about him.

David Horowitz on the incoherence of the Left: "Most people on the left, for example, embrace positions in advance of understanding either their rationale or implications, or attempting to square them with their progressive theories. How otherwise explain "compassionate" progressives who are opposed to the death penalty for serial killers of small children supporting the court-ordered killing of Terry Schiavo, a severely handicapped individual who committed no crime? How do we explain the determination of progressives to defend a dictator, and oppressor of women, gays and minorities, like Saddam Hussein?"

Some comments by a certain cover girl on Leftist "intellectualism": "Liberals enjoy claiming that they are intellectuals, thrilled to engage in a battle of wits. This, they believe, distinguishes them from conservatives, who are religious fanatics who react with impotent rage to opposing ideas. As one liberal, Jonathan Chait, put the cliche in the New Republic: Bush is an "instinctive anti-intellectual" and his administration hostile to "fact-driven debate."... I'm not sure how these descriptions square with the fact that liberals keep responding to conservative ideas by throwing food. (Remember the good old days when liberals' "fact-driven" ideas only meant throwing money at their problems?) Last October, two liberals responded to my speech at the University of Arizona - during question and answer, no less - by charging the stage and throwing two pies at me from a few yards away. Fortunately for me, liberals not only argue like liberals, they also throw like girls.... Unfortunately for them, Republican men don't react favorably to two "Deliverance" boys trying to sucker-punch a 110-pound female in a skirt and heels. The geniuses ended up with bloody noses and broken bones. It's really outrageous how conservatives respond to liberals who are just trying to engage in a "fact-driven debate." How typical of Republicans to go on the offensive just because a female has been physically attacked. Instead of capturing and subduing my attackers, those strong Republican men should have been trying to understand why they threw the pies.

What lies behind Leftist violence: "they return to their posture of primitive protesting -- a wild, speechless style of protest that throws light on liberalism's essential hostility to reason and morality. Why do liberals who regard themselves as apostles of Enlightenment reason resort so quickly to intimidation and primitive exertion of will? Because fundamentally liberalism is based not on reason but on force. It is a willfulness writ large that becomes more vivid as liberals lose power and fail to control a people unpersuaded by claims that find no basis in reality and thus cannot be calmly demonstrated by reason".

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ELSEWHERE

RivrDog has some pretty scathing comments on Goldman Sachs -- saying that they were largely to blame for the 1929 stockmarket crash. He concludes that stockmarket investing is an unsafe destination for retirement funds and that real estate is a much better bet. I used to think that way myself and I still do own substantial real estate but seeing that my stockmarket investments (all in blue chips) have nearly doubled in value in the last 4 years, I am now much more positive about stocks. But I too would avoid any managed funds or stockbroker advice. There is far too much crookedness and self-serving there. Retirement savers should be allowed to invest in companies directly. If you invest in blue chips the few crashes will be greatly outnumbered by the gains. If GWB's retirement accounts ever become reality, the list of approved investments should be companies, not "funds".

A very graphic reminder here of what the Communist takeover of Cambodia led to.

Another defeat for socialism: It looks like the Airbus A380 superjumbo programme will be as big a loser for the European taxpayer as the Concorde was.

Theodore Dalrymple has a big essay on the degradation of the character of the British people that socialism has brought about: "Hayek thought he had observed an important change in the character of the British people, as a result both of their collectivist aspirations and of such collectivist measures as had already been legislated. He noted, for example, a shift in the locus of people's moral concern. Increasingly, it was the state of society or the world as a whole that engaged their moral passion, not their own conduct. "It is, however, more than doubtful whether a fifty years' approach towards collectivism has raised our moral standards, or whether the change has not rather been in the opposite direction," he wrote. "Though we are in the habit of priding ourselves on our more sensitive social conscience, it is by no means clear that this is justified by the practice of our individual conduct." In fact, "It may even be . . . that the passion for collective action is a way in which we now without compunction collectively indulge in that selfishness which as ind! ividuals we had learnt a little to restrain." Thus, to take a trifling instance, it is the duty of the city council to keep the streets clean; therefore my own conduct in this regard is morally irrelevant-which no doubt explains why so many young Britons now leave a trail of litter behind them wherever they go. If the streets are filthy, it is the council's fault"

Antisemitism among Leftist British academics: "Union delegates calling for a boycott of Israeli academics were condemned yesterday by the Board of Deputies of British Jews for damaging the Middle East peace process. Jon Benjamin, the director-general of the board, said that a boycott would create an extra obstacle to peace at a time when Israelis and Palestinians are building bridges. The motion is to be debated this week by the Association of University Teachers (AUT). Closer links with the Palestinians will also be debated. Mr Benjamin said: "A boycott of Israeli academics, and Israeli academics alone, has worrying signs of anti-Semitism".

Does this dummy realize that her "good deed" is going to get high-risk borrowers (which minorities often are) denied loans altogether? "Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager on Saturday called for changes to state law to allow her office to seek remedies for black and Latino car buyers who are charged higher rates than their white counterparts for auto loans from dealers in Wisconsin".

My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx approved of British rule over India.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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