Fundamental Concepts - Eyes Wide Shut [Weirddave]

This is something that's happened to me a couple of times in the past few weeks. What is it about Progs in that they can't seem to simply discuss issues? Now, I'm not talking about arguing, arguing can be unpleasant, and if someone doesn't want to subject themselves to that, fine. I'm also not talking about yelling, screaming, insulting, mobbing or any of the other juvenile behaviors that are Twitter's stock in trade. No, I'm just talking about discussing issues and events with someone who has a different point of view or opinion. For example, just this week I had the following conversation on Twitter with someone who was using the 47traitors hashtag.

Me: straight question: Do you believe the Constitution should be followed, or not?

Him: @Weirddave0 all of it, not just the 2nd amendment. You clowns select like am ala carte menu, it doesn't work that way! #47Traitors

Me: Well, if that's true, then you must admit that it requires treaties 2 be ratified by the Senate. exec can't act unilaterally.

In response he blocked me. Now, there's nothing else, I'm not omitting any background tweets. I asked a polite question and initiated a discussion, and when I didn't agree with whatever cockamamie point he was trying to make (and I don't even know what his particular beef with the Senators is, he didn't say), he disengaged. Same thing happened the week before. Someone was Tweeting about health insurance, and made the claim that the PPACA (or as I like to call it, pee pee caca (yea, it doesn't quite fit. Close enough, and accurate)) had stopped insurance companies from dropping people when they made a claim. I responded that that's not true, there has been a law for decades preventing that. He repeated his claim you can get dropped for too much in claims. I replied "No, You can not. CAN NOT. I'm an insurance broker, and what you are saying is just flat untrue." And in response he blocked me.

Fine you say. That's just Twitter. It's the playground of poor players who strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I'll even grant you that, but it isn't just Twitter. I've seen it in real life too. I have a friend, Gingy's friend, really, but I've know her for years. She's a barking lib. A few weeks before the 2012 election, I started to ask her something about something Obama had done. I don't remember what, it might have been about abortion (she's a doctrinal lib except on abortion, where her Catholic upbringing still holds sway). She literally stuck her fingers in her ears and started saying LALALALALALALA. Literally literally, not Biden literally. I just stared at her. I couldn't have been more shocked of she'd torn off her clothes and run naked down the street. She's not a stupid woman, but I'd never seen anyone over the age of 4 do that. The chance that some contradiction in her belief system might be brought to her attention was so frightening to her that she regressed to infancy to avoid facing it.

Of course no blanket statements can be made, there are some Libs who will defend their beliefs rationally, and there are a lot of Conservative/Libertarian folks who are just as dogmatically insistent on their pet causes (Chem-trails!), but as a general rule the Left seems to value unquestioning conformity and the right debate in search of consensus.

The following statement has been attributed to Churchill: "If you're not a Liberal when you're 20, you have no heart, if you're not a Conservative when you're 40, you have no brain". I think there's a lot of wisdom in that aphorism. How many conservatives do you know who were liberals when they were young? I know a lot of them, including myself. How many people do you know who went the other way? Other than a handful in the public sphere who cynically could be accused of doing so for personal or professional advancement, I've met exactly one. One (and I knew him as an adult lib, I have to take his word that he used to be conservative).

The reason is simple. Simply speaking, conservative principles work, liberal principles feel good. I can point to the unprecedented wealth and freedom created in America by free market principles, someone who wants to counter with an argument for socialism doesn't have a counter example, so he resorts to excuses or abandons the field entirely. Someone who has made that journey from feels to reality is prepared to explain why and how, the POV stuck on "Won't somebody please think of the children?!" doesn't have anything beyond their burning need to be (or be perceived as) compassionate.

The bad news is that "Hey, reality is conservative, we have the facts on our side" isn't as powerful a trump card as it should be. The simple truth is that you can't reason a person out of a position that they haven't reasoned themselves into, and there's precious little reason in Proggy dogma. Most people are non-political, and they just don't care to take the time to think deeply about any issues, the facile trumps the tactile. Many of us keep trying because it's a journey that we've already made for ourselves. Sadly many Progs won't be ready to make that journey until they are standing amid the ruins of Western Civilization saying "What the hell happened?", and most not even then.

Here's a secret: I'm not wrong about any of my political beliefs. Know why? Because I constantly test them against reality, and against the counter claims of the left. If someone can prove to me that what I'm espousing isn't true, I'll change my mind. I know what wrong is, I've been as wrong as wrong can be politically, many times. When exposed to the facts I changed my worldview to match the facts, I didn't discard the fact as inconvenient or claim that they weren't true. If you want me to believe that the moon is Stilton, or Dutch, you better bring the proof, and then I'll consider it. Faith is fine and dandy for my beliefs about God and the Lord Jesus Christ, but in the secular world I'm all about the empirical, baby. Unfortunately the left is all about faith. They believe things are true because they want them to be true, or because it would feel good if they were true or because if they aren't true than that means the world is harder and more brutish than they want to admit.

Unfortunately for me, while they can live in their own little bubble of fantasy inside reality, reality can't exist as a bubble inside their fantasy land. Unfortunately for them, there comes a point where reality insists upon itself. Violently. They aren't going to like it very much when that happens. Neither will I, but at least I won't be surprised when it happens.

ETA I forgot to mention, testing my reasoning about political concepts is one of the reasons I write these threads. I throw stuff out there and trust that the Horde will have no qualms about telling be when I'm full of spit. I'd like to think that maybe it'll help someone who reads it do the same.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

| Access Comments