THE LEFTIST RELIANCE ON ABUSE

It's horribly fascinating to see the way the Left in our society rely on torrents of abuse as a substitute for rational argument. Take this excerpt from a Leftist review of Thomas Friedman's latest book (Friedman is a conservative-leaning New York Times columnist):

"Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses. On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country".

That passage is virtually information-free. There may be facts behind it but the passage itself tells us nothing factual. It is mere abuse. And the review goes on like that at great length. There is the occasional fact mentioned but never any attempt at a balanced evaluation of the fact concerned. I have myself been the object of similar rage-filled tirades from Leftist bloggers recently. There may be shreds of rational argument somewhere among the rage but "shreds" is the word. One hardly needs do more than spell out the argument in order to expose its absurdity -- as David Boxenhorn has shown. But if I were a Leftist, I guess I would have to write in a similar irrational way. When the facts are so much against you, what is left but rage? But reading these diatribes of rage and hate does certainly explain the horrors that happen when Leftists gain unrestricted power (i.e. in Communist regimes).

And note this fact-free rant about Christian conservatives:

"They are the Theocrats, the Christian Taliban right here in America, and they are deadly dangerous both to this nation and the world entire. These people do not in any way represent mainstream Christianity, yet sadly they are redefining the meaning of that faith across the board. They would annihilate all that America has stood for these last two hundred years to 'save' the nation, literally as far as they are concerned, and right now, they believe they have the power to get everything they want."

And this comment from Powerline also shows how the Left rejoice in hate rather than in reason:

"How Sick Can the Left Get? I don't know, but we haven't hit bottom yet. A reader called me to point out this sickening display on Cafe Press. American political history is often not pretty. But I don't think we have ever experienced anything remotely approaching the current descent of liberals into hate. Not only hate, but weird hate. And it will continue until voters definitively reject the Democratic Party. Another reader points out this one. There is no depth to which the American left will not sink."

What I have noted above is of course far from entirely new. Around 100 years ago, Theodore Roosevelt was a "Progressive", but a decent one. Some of his wise words: "It is no impossible dream to build up a civilization in which morality, ethical development, and a true feeling of brotherhood shall all alike be divorced from false sentimentality, and from the rancorous and evil passions which, curiously enough, so often accompany professions of sentimental attachment to the rights of man .... The good citizen must be a good citizen of his own country first before he can with advantage be a citizen of the world at large".

(A short version of this post appeared on Blogger News yesterday)

UPDATE

I have come across some amusing confirmation of my observations about the Leftist diatribe against Friedman above: I am not a regular reader of the NYT -- to put it mildly. It is The Times of London that I read regularly. And I am certainly not a regular reader of Thomas Friedman. Links that I put up here to NYT articles are ones suggested to me by my readers. So when I read the diatribe against Friedman by Taibbi there was so much rage and abuse in it that the only information I could glean from it was that Friedman probably uses metaphors badly, that Friedman sometimes espouses conservative causes and that Taibbi has at least some Leftist views. All the rest seemed mere abuse with no real information content at all. And the immoderateness of what Taibbi said made even his few points of information about Friedman suspect -- which is why I described Friedman as conservative-LEANING rather than conservative. So the essence of what I pointed to in the Taibbi article was its devotion to abuse rather than rational argument. I note however that two conservative bloggers (Taranto and Powerline) have praised the Taibbi article. And from reading Powerline in particular I now understood what was worthy of derision in Friedman -- that his use of metaphors is indeed often bad and that he is a shallow thinker generally. Because Powerline and Taranto knew Friedman's writings, they needed no information about him from Taibbi. They simply approved of Taibbi being derogatory about him. So my point about the article by Taibbi being just a rage outburst with only marginal information content stands well confirmed.

**************************

ELSEWHERE

Do-gooders can't face facts: "The World Social Forum (WSF) meetings in Porto Alegre, Brazil, last January brought together nearly 130,000 people to hear more than 350 policy proposals about subjects as diverse as hunger, weapons proliferation, child abuse, and "globalization" in the developing world. Yet although the meetings' attendees fancied themselves as cutting-edge humanitarians fighting the good fight against poverty and injustice, their proposals have little chance of improving the everyday lives of the poor and disenfranchised because the WSF participants failed to challenge the root causes of underdevelopment and social marginalization... Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for example, said nothing about the government restrictions and political cronyism that hamper local entrepreneurs.... we could say that those who participated in the latest World Social Forum represent countries underdeveloped by their own hand, because they used all the tools of the State available to them to hinder and prevent the indispensable process of capital accumulation and wealth creation."

Politics causes unemployment : "Whenever government forcibly raises employment costs it causes marginal labor, that is, labor that barely covers its costs, to become submarginal. It does not matter whether government orders wage rates to rise or benefits to be improved, the workday to be shortened, overtime pay to be raised, funds to be set aside for sickness and old age, or any other benefit to be granted. A small boost renders few workers submarginal, a large boost affects many. In matters of employment they now are 'unproductive' and cannot be used economically."

More people haters: "Last week the world celebrated an historic medical research milestone, the 50th anniversary of the polio vaccine. But Hollywood glitterati - including Alec Baldwin, Noah Wyle and Emmylou Harris - dishonored that life-saving moment by celebrating another milestone - the 20th birthday of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). This is an organization which opposes the very research that made the polio breakthrough possible. In 1949, Science magazine explained to readers that animals (including mice, oxen and rhesus monkeys) were needed in every phase of polio research.... Animal research has led to vaccines for rabies, smallpox, rubella, measles and anthrax. Insulin diabetics owe their quality of life to animal models - which also brought us heart bypasses, organ transplants and the minimally invasive surgical techniques we now take for granted. Throw it all out, says the Physicians Committee.... If this anti-science position sounds familiar, it should. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) - those protest-happy lunatics who believe your life is worth no more than that of a cow or a chicken - have a sympathetic take on nearly every message PCRM promotes"

Pejman has some good shots at the latest subterfuge of the Leftist authoritarians who want to make our decisions for us. They call it "libertarian paternalism" but that's just typical Leftist verbal magic. There's nothing libertarian about it. Their claim is that too much choice is bad for you. Even if that were so, too much government would certainly be even worse for you.

Good news: The serial litigator who tried to set up the Wendy's restaurants with a story about a severed finger found in a bowl of chili has now been arrested.

The Amtrak disaster summarized: "Amtrak, the nation's troubled passenger railroad, might as well have been in a train wreck..... Supporters of Amtrak insist that cutting its federal lifeline would kill passenger train travel. To the contrary. Three decades of crisis, including this month's Acela fiasco, demonstrate that a new approach is needed."

My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows Engels mocking "niggers".

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

**************************

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"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************