What Is Leftism?

As promised, I am sparing a few moments to explore leftism and how its ascendancy heralds the death of Western civilization.  Most people know what leftism is, at least on the surface, even if they rarely pause to articulate it.  Here it is:

Leftism is the urge to use government to change society.

While this might not strike you as a startling revelation, consider its underpinnings and ramifications.

Government by its very nature is force, so a leftist is by his very nature a brute who lacks the patience, tolerance, and maturity to seek change through peaceful or persuasive means.  Thus where leftism reigns, so do violence and the threat of violence. Civil society cannot survive in this barbaric environment and degenerates into a war of all against all, where every private act becomes public business.  What was personal is now political. (Some of you might be wondering why I tagged leftism as afoot in the war against the Boy Scouts, since that campaign is using shrillness rather than force.  You mustn't forget that force indeed was tried but rebuffed by the Supreme Court, so it is only for a lack of options that force is not being brought to bear.)

A healthy society is one where the government upholds social mores and beliefs; government is the servant, and society is the master.  In a healthy society that honors the sanctity of the individual, such as America once was, government functions primarily as a neutral referee to keep the peace and resolve disputes, allowing free people to decide for themselves how to change over time.  To suggest that government should change society is as bizarre as suggesting that a referee should help one team defeat another.  Yet this is what leftists want to do because, as self-styled "progressives," they view it as their mission to push society in a direction that they feel is better than what society wants for itself.  To a leftist, government must be teleological rather than neutral so it can bully us all to the leftist's vision of nirvana.

Let's dig a little deeper.  Why does a leftist yearn to rip government away from its subservient relationship to society and wield force against society itself?  Because the leftist is alienated from society and hates himself for it.  Being human, of course, the leftist cannot admit that he isn't good enough for society, so he projects onto society and concludes that it isn't good enough for him.  How else could it be that so many people who are less thoughtful, creative, and intelligent prosper so much more than he does?  Because society is sick, he rationalizes. He effectively transforms his self-hatred into self-admiration, a twisted hubris that causes him to become in his own mind a superhero whose task it is to push the unworthy masses into a purely rational and virtuous tomorrow. The leftist is effective in this, for while most other people are busy living a productive life and minding their own business, he makes constant war on the culture surrounding him because his very identity depends on it -- his alienation defines him, so like a shark that must keep moving to stay alive, he never pauses lest he lose his reason for living.

I should pause to note that the leftist push for multiculturalism is a brilliant cover for the leftist's true goal, which is to hollow out and destroy his own culture.  By honoring all cultures in a single society, the leftist guarantees that none of them (least of all his own) has a foothold in that society. 

Quite naturally, the leftist hates religion because society adheres to it.  The urge to be contrarian and feel superior would be enough on its own to explain this hatred, but once again there is something deeper going on here.  Religion in general and Christianity in particular are inward-focused and demand personal excellence, which is precisely where the leftist is deficient.  The leftist cannot and does not wish to improve himself; he is far too busy calling attention to the mote in everyone else's eyes to remove the beam from his own.  Leftism offers an easy path to salvation that proves irresistible to the weak and depraved.  A leftist becomes moral simply by voicing the "right" opinions -- usually for government violence against the "wrong" sort of people -- even though the leftist himself might be an adulterer, pornographer, vulgarian, or similar sleaze.  It is no accident that many leftists are indeed sleazy and cheap; it's far easier, for example, to loudly demand that government redistribute wealth than quietly donate what you yourself own.  A final but paramount reason leftists hate religion is that it competes with government as a source of authority, establishing a benchmark for righteousness other than what the leftist and his ilk arbitrarily proclaim.  The prospect of a supernatural power greater than the mundane authority of government terrifies the leftist because it offers an escape from his clutches, and because it reminds him that his petty universe might be built on quicksand.

And of course there is the leftist fixation with equality, not in the legal sense, but in the material and factual sense.  Because it is impossible for everyone to be excellent, the fixation on equality requires cutting the excellent down to size.  Indeed, legal equality is inconsistent and hostile to factual equality, since only by discriminating among whom to attack can the leftist pursue his Procrustean mission.  Once again, it's far easier for the leftist to degrade and diminish others than to improve himself.   

But what has made leftism triumphant in the West?  Prosperity.  Leftism is a patricide against the older generations whose sobriety, thrift, and virtue created the wealth that has enabled leftism to expand and destroy the very foundations of that wealth.  On a previous occasion I compared leftism to diabetes, and the analogy is apt here as well.  There have always been die-hard leftists who were born as such, i.e., "Type I Leftists."  But prosperity, like sugar, also makes leftists out of people who otherwise would be normal and well-adjusted, i.e., "Type II Leftists."  The Type II Leftist comes of age in a prosperous environment where poverty, prejudice, disease, and want are the exceptions; he is unaware that they have been the rule for almost all of human history, and he mistakenly concludes that these phenomena must be the product of injustice.  Thus the Type II Leftist decides -- usually during his callow youth, a naturally rebellious phase -- that he must fight this injustice and change the society that allows it to persist, so he now shares common cause with the eccentric and congenitally-disaffected Type I Leftist, who was always around but never had very many allies. 

Linking arms, these two species of leftist thrive in a saccharine environment whose material blessings they take for granted, and which they even view as birthright.  Anyone they encounter who opposes them on the basis of antiquated notions such as the rule of law, religion, or personal virtue is denounced as cruel and unjust.  With enough manpower at long last, the leftists seize control of the coercive machinery of government and use it to make perpetual war against their opponents and society at large, telling themselves that the noble end of eradicating poverty and want from the world justifies the violent means to achieve it.  Wealth, culture, and virtue are gradually ground up in the government's gears; poverty, crime, and the standard plagues of history make their inevitable comeback.  When this happens, the leftist does not blame himself -- after all, he never has.  Instead he condemns the opposition even more, blaming the "conservatives" for gumming up the works and refusing to get with the program.  Violence eventually is unleashed to a horrifying extent, as government casts off all remaining hindrances (which are erroneously being blamed for the problems).  Having enjoyed prosperity for a long enough time, it becomes impossible for the society to conclude that its leftist chain of reasoning was flawed, that its belief system is corrupt, and that only a complete reversal of course can save it.   Like a supernova, the point of no return is passed, as the society can no longer produce anything other than more violence to solve its problems. 

After the collapse and explosion, stardust scatters and carries the promise of future brilliance.  It remains to be seen whether humanity will develop its mind enough to escape this pattern, or whether the mind will forever remain a servant of the blind will and repeat the pattern for as long as life exists.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

As an attorney I must grapple with argument fallacies every day, and I am strongly tempted to print out and staple a good collection of them to my next legal brief.  But there is one fallacy in particular that follows me wherever I go, whether it's reading the news or overhearing a barroom debate: "post hoc ergo propter hoc," which means "after this, because of this."  Another version is "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" ("with this, because of this"), but they both boil down to the erroneous equation of correlation with causation.  Here are just a few that plague modern discourse:

• People who attend college tend to earn more money over the course of their lives, so if we cram as many people into college as possible, they will earn more as well.

• Bill Clinton urged an increase in income taxes whereas George W. Bush urged a decrease in income taxes.  Since the economy was vigorous in the '90s but tanked in the '00s, tax increases are good for the economy.

• On a related note, the Great Depression ended with World War II, so war is good for the economy.

• Homeowners are healthier, happier, and have families that are more stable, so we should help anyone who can fog a mirror get a house to improve everyone's lives.

• Winters aren't as cold or snowy as they were when I was a kid, so Al Gore must be right about anthropogenic global warming.

• Government investment played a critical role in creating the Internet, so government should remain active in promoting scientific achievement.

• Countries such as Sweden and Canada have massive welfare states yet have not suffered economic meltdowns, so there is no reason not to augment the welfare state in America.

Granted, these fallacies straddle other ones such as non sequitur (it does not follow), but the correlation/causation fallacy is apparent.  If any of you out there in computer land are wondering what is mistaken about the above bullet points, I urge you to read and think critically on your own rather than purchase your ideas off the shelf -- I will not provide a crib sheet to explain just how asinine the above assertions truly are.  Although most of us no longer grow our own food, we should not lapse into the habit of letting other people grow our thoughts.   

On the other hand, maybe I'm just tilting at windmills here.  This sort of magical thinking has become so deeply embedded that it's useless to try to root it out.  Well, two can play at that game.  Here are some propositions of my own that many of you will surely denounce, as follows:

• The rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy, crime, and homicide in the African-American community have skyrocketed since Lyndon Johnson launched the Great Society, so the welfare state is toxic to African-Americans and needs to be reconsidered.

• Jurisdictions with stricter gun laws have much higher gun violence, so the remedy for gun violence is to arm more people and thus deter criminals. 

• Ever since suffrage became universal, the federal government's power has grown vastly beyond the Constitution's limits, money has been forcibly redistributed to those who did not earn it, regulations have proliferated beyond imagination, the deficit and national debt have skyrocketed, America faces economic ruin, and voters have shown a stronger proclivity for security over liberty (though now losing both).  Perhaps we need to reconsider whether suffrage is truly a "right" or, as my ancestors understood, a privilege to be exercised only by those who demonstrate sufficient knowledge and responsibility.

• Ever since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the dollar has lost 99% of its value.  To strengthen the dollar and the economy, we should terminate the Fed and allow interest rates to float freely in the marketplace.

• As more and more people from around the world flood into America, America is losing those qualities that once made it unique, free, and prosperous.  We thus need a moratorium on immigration for at least two generations so that we can salvage what we (and world history) are about to irretrievably lose.  We also need a vigorous program of identification, location, and deportation of all persons here illegally.  There is historical precedent for both (e.g., the Immigration Act of 1924, and Eisenhower's Operation Wetback).

The Tragedy And The Lessons Of Chris Dorner

For those of you who don't read the news, Chris Dorner is a former soldier and police officer who has declared a one-man war on the L.A.P.D. for being drummed out of the force.  Apparently, he refused to play the game of "see no evil, hear no evil" when confronted with injustice on the job, something we're all familiar with, but which becomes a matter of life and death in certain professions.  He was punished because he stood up for the truth rather than be a team player, for not sacrificing his principles on the altar of office politics.  It is tragic that he snapped and decided to take other people's lives, which is clearly wrong.  But it is also tragic that legions of Chris Dorners are chewed up and spit out every day by a corrupt society that values money and expediency over truth and honor.  Men cannot live by bread alone.  It is not enough for us to be clothed, fed, or even loved; we crave justice, and modern society has made it almost impossible to find.  Chris Dorner decided that because society would not give him justice, he would seize it for himself (albeit in a warped way).  Perhaps this episode will encourage some soul-searching among the powers that be, but I highly doubt it given their soulless nature.

There are other lessons to be had here as well.  One of them is how the police are behaving in a savage, unprofessional, and unapologetic manner in gunning down vehicles similar to Dorner's and thus endangering innocent lives.  The modern mantra of the police is to protect and serve themselves before considering anything or anyone else.  One could easily conclude that Dorner -- who saw firsthand how trigger-happy the police can be -- is implementing a famous revolutionary tactic, i.e., provoking overreaction from militant authorities and sitting back while they foolishly inflame the populace.  Another lesson is exploding the myth that one armed man cannot possibly compete with the government.  Yes, he can, which again is why the Second Amendment exists.  I'm sure someone out there will accuse me of siding with Dorner now, but I am not.  I am merely trying to find a silver lining in the clouds here.  As I have said before, the dangers of having the Second Amendment are nothing compared the dangers of not having it.  If Dorner's rampage is what it takes for government to re-acquire a healthy fear of the people, maybe some good can come from all this.  In the meantime, let's hope this ends without any further loss of life.   

DENOUEMENT:

Though the L.A.P.D. has been very effective at blacking out news coverage and destroying the crime scene, by all accounts it has summarily executed Chris Dorner.  In so doing, the L.A.P.D. has stepped beyond its professional role of law enforcement and outed itself as a paramilitary death squad.  I consider Chris Dorner and the L.A.P.D. as in pari delicto, equally murderous and criminal.

The War On The Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts, a private organization roughly one hundred years old, are supposedly a menace to society because they do not welcome every and all persons who wish to become members. Any number of fraternities, sororities, moose lodges, and tree houses should be considered a menace on that basis. But this is different, you say, because the Boy Scouts exclude people merely for being homosexual, and that's not nice. Excuse me, but how are homosexuals harmed by the mere existence of a group of people who choose to associate with each other on such terms? If the Boy Scouts didn't exist at all, there would be no homosexual scouts. The fact that the Boy Scouts exist does not magically harm homosexuals who are not scouts -- they are no worse off than they would be otherwise. The Boy Scouts are not imposing their views on anyone; if you dislike what they stand for, you can go somewhere else or found a rival organization. It is everyone else who is forcing their views onto the Boy Scouts, which is the true outrage here.

Once again we see that the professional complainers among us have no wish to be left alone as they often claim, but rather declare war on those who truly do. I will likely write a separate post on the nature of leftism, but this episode provides a sneak preview into what leftism is all about. Leftists do not want to be left alone or to leave anyone else alone, because under those circumstances they always lose. As natural-born losers, they balk at lifting themselves up (which they are incapable of) and dedicate themselves to dragging everyone else down. Leftists despise liberty because it produces results that damage their fragile egos. It is no mistake that Barack Obama, a garden-variety leftist with a chip on his shoulder, has denounced the Boy Scouts even though it's none of his business as president, and even though the Boy Scouts are exercising their God-given right to freedom of association. A real president protects people's rights even if he disagrees with how they are being exercised; a leftist occupier of the presidency takes everything personally and declares war on people's rights so that he can build utopia, the land where all private sources of probity must be suffocated so that only government can determine people's worth.     

Pure Body, Impure Spirit

Is the mark of our times, as I posted about once before and was reminded of today while eating lunch.  A fellow sitting not far from me proclaimed that he did not want fries with his meal because he wanted to be healthy, so he inquired about getting a salad instead.  Shortly afterwards, the fellow carried on a loud conversation laced with profanity despite the presence of several other patrons in the vicinity, including a woman (not an acquaintance, rather a complete stranger to him).  Perhaps he never learned that what comes out of a man's mouth is what defiles him, not what goes into it.  Such wisdom is vanishing in our neo-pagan world, where only the body exists and above us is only sky.  I ate a delicious meal of chicken wings and fries while keeping my thoughts to myself, relishing our differences.     

Brief Observation

There are two kinds of people: those who use their will in an effort to conquer the world around them, and those who use their mind in an effort to conquer the will within them.  No matter how many conquests they make, the former are always slaves to the blind impulses controlling them.  Every great system of thought recognizes the latter as the true conquerors.  The modern West, with its shameless worship of the will's every excess, is falling apart because it has rejected this truth (once held in place by Christendom).