Leftist thinking and the Violence in New Mexico

The explanation of Leftism below by Douglas Goode is very similar to my own but I look further back into what makes Lreftists such arrogant monsters

For a number of years I have summarized the difference between American conservatives and American liberals as follows:  Conservatives derive their ideology from facts; liberals fabricate their facts from their ideology.  But it wasn’t until I began reading Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society that I realized my pithy summation simply didn’t go far enough.  It only dealt with the symptoms, not the cause; its pith summarized only the what, but not the why.  And because of this, however pithy, clever, or even accurate my summation was, merely stating it to an individual of the Left-leaning persuasion was probably not going to help him or her abandon his or her allegiance to Leftist ideology.  Whatever its wisdom, it was flat-out insufficient to the task of helping a Left-leaning/collectivist individual see the inherent fatal flaw of his or her world view.  At best, its pithy wisdom merely generated a hearty chuckle from fellow conservatives and individualists.

In chapter 4 of Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society he discusses why Left-leaning individuals are so consummately skilled at cherry-picking (or even fabricating facts) to prop up their world view.  (If you can, obtain a copy of his book: pour over it; make notes in the margins and otherwise mark it up; make your copy decidedly your own.  Sowell conveys a great deal of meaty content in clear, concise, and easy-to-understand prose.  His book is about intellectuals, but is not written for them.  Instead, it is written for everyone.)  In chapter 4 he demonstrates that the why is due to what he calls the “vision of the anointed.” He convincingly articulates that this vision is held and believed by intellectuals (and their hangers-on, their fellow travelers, who may not properly be classified as intellectuals themselves).

He compares and contrasts this “vision of the anointed” with the “constrained vision” or “tragic vision” which conservatives (as well as other ordinary people) hold.  The “constrained” or “tragic” vision is characterized by a far more sober review of history and assessment of the human condition.  No, it’s not that conservatives, individualists, and ordinary people have a dark or negative world view of history or of their fellow man.  Instead, they just don’t suffer from well-intended and/or pleasing fantasies.  They have hopes for a better world, certainly, but hopes that are grounded by, or tethered to, a far more realistic point of view.  For in spite of whatever well-intended hopes and wishes conservatives and individuals have for a better world, these hopes and wishes are constrained by the tragic and unavoidable realities of the human condition.

But those who have the vision of the anointed believe with almost a religious fervor that they can implement the ideas formulated by intellectuals in order to make human society better.  They see the tragic circumstances of wars, poverty, and numerous other examples of human misery merely as problems for which intellectuals can formulate solutions.  Problems which will be eradicated if we just get out of the way of all the (self-professed) smart people; problems that can be eliminated if we just spend enough of other people’s money.  (Margaret Thatcher’s warning falls on deaf ears.)  In short, if all of us conservative rubes would just let the smart Progressives call the shots and run the show, why, we’ll end up with a better world.  “A Future We Can Believe In.”  In a word, Utopia.

Those individuals who have the constrained vision or the tragic vision see the many instances of human misery as unavoidable aspects of the human condition.  Again, whatever well-intended hopes and wishes they have for a better world, these hopes and wishes are constrained by the tragic realities of the human condition.  When they can they work to mitigate and minimize those numerous instances of human misery and suffering.  (This is why conservatives are far more generous with their time, their money, and their treasure than liberals.  Conservatives are far more generous than liberals.) But they understand and comprehend that no number of acts of charity, no amount of wishful thinking, and no liberal amount of government spending will ever be enough to eliminate human suffering completely.  Thomas Sowell writes, “In the tragic vision, barbarism is always waiting in the wings and civilization is simply ‘a thin crust over a volcano.’”  He continues, “It [the tragic vision] is a vision of trade-offs, rather than solutions, and a vision of wisdom distilled from the experiences of the many rather than the brilliance of a few.” (Intellectuals and Society, pg.78)

Further, those grounded in the constrained vision realize that the poking and prodding and modifying the thin crust of Civilization carries a terrible cost.  That when we allow the self-professed best and brightest have their way, when we allow them to ignore the distilled wisdom of millions upon millions of individuals (whether in the ages gone by, or in the present), when we allow those relative few afflicted with the vision of the anointed to impose their solutions upon those millions, a great deal of unintended suffering and tragedy naturally and unavoidably follows.  When you abrade the fabric of a Civil Society too much, it frays.  When you persist at abrading it in spite of the blaring claxons sounding warning after warning, it completely unravels.  No matter how pure your motives.  No matter how thoroughly you’ve convinced yourself that just the right tweaks and government “investments” will make things all better.

Sadly, those afflicted with the vision of the anointed do not see this.  Despite the historical record, despite failure after failure of socialism, communism, or any other collectivist vision, they cling to their ideological fantasies with an almost unflinching iron-clad grip.  They have to.  Their entire egos are invested in it.  For this is another aspect of the vision of the anointed.  They see their vision not as one among several:  they see their vision as the only legitimate one.  Worse, they see themselves as part of an inner-circle, if you will.  They see themselves as the anointed.  Thus, they believe that they are due and deserve special deference and laud.  Worse, they see all of us who do not share their self-professed enlightened point of view as not just wrong but downright evil.

Is it any wonder, then, that when you challenge their pleasing fantasies, you’re not just “damaging their calm,” you are utterly decimating their chosen and cherished fantasy world?  Worse, because they have invested their very egos into their fabricated fantasy, and see you or see me as evil, they cannot debate in the arena of ideas and agree to disagree when A Conflict of Visions manifests.  In their erudite eyes, views different from theirs must be illegitimate: in short those views must be destroyed, not tolerated.

So they are going to be terribly tempted to fight tooth and nail.  When they can no longer resist that temptation they quickly resort to violence.  Our challenges to their chosen and cherished fantasies are a towering threat to their entire being.  In their eyes, their very lives and livelihoods are at stake.  What we saw in New Mexico is repeated over and over again where Left-leaning malcontents gather to protest and abandon all self-restraint.  The thin, civilized crust containing the volcano’s raging fire is insufficient for the task.  Mr. Trump and his supporters serve as just the current focus for this volcanic rage.  He, and they, are not the first; he, and they, will not be the last.

SOURCE

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Hillary as a monster from the Id

Please don't put the powers of the Presidency into the hands of a hostile and vindictive b*tch

American elections had, since the abandonment of the bipartisan "containment" [of the Soviets] consensus in 1972, been fought largely on ideological grounds: McGovern vs. Nixon, Carter vs. Reagan, Clinton vs. Bush I, Gore vs. Bush II, even Obama vs. McCain/Romney. The genius of Obama and his team was to present the most ideological candidate since Reagan as the smiling African-American liberals wished lived next door, and so the extremity of his anti-American agenda was masked by the smile and the shoeshine.

We now arrive at what -- at this moment, anyway -- is likely to be the 2016 choice. Obama, like Bush II, did not provide for a plausible successor, and the GOP, against its usual dynastic practice, chose not to hand the baton to multiple-loser Mitt Romney. Instead, the Democrats will likely nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman of no accomplishment, but whose scary mug has been thrust into American faces since the campaign of 1992, and just won't go away. In a just world, of course, she would have been long ago indicted on any of her multiple scandals, but -- with the evidence of the Clintons, cockroaches and the Kardashians before us -- we do not live in a just world.

Mrs. Clinton is a hard-core Alinskyite -- she wrote her senior thesis on this devil while at Wellesley -- as is Obama. There is no question she is to the left of her husband, Bubba, whose sexual and financial appetites were always first and foremost in his mind. But her weakness is the same as her husband's: an unceasing, voracious appetite for money:

“Follow the money.” That telling phrase, which has come to summarize the Watergate scandal, has been a part of the lexicon since 1976. It’s shorthand for political corruption: At what point do “contributions” become bribes, “constituent services” turn into quid pro quos and “charities” become slush funds?
Ronald Reagan was severely criticized in 1989 when, after he left office, he was paid $2 million for a couple of speeches in Japan. “The founding fathers would have been stunned that an occupant of the highest office in this land turned it into bucks,” sniffed a Columbia professor.

So what would Washington and Jefferson make of Hillary Rodham Clinton? Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that, in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state collected $21,667,000 in “speaking fees,” not to mention the cool $5 mil she corralled as an advance for her 2014 flop book, “Hard Choices.”

Throw in the additional $26,630,000 her ex-president husband hoovered up in personal-appearance “honoraria,” and the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief that the former first couple — who, according to Hillary, were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 with some of the furniture in tow — can finally make ends meet.

No wonder Donald Trump calls her “crooked Hillary.”

Even more than her beloved helpmeet, Mrs. Clinton has perfected the Leftist art of living high on the hog while at the same time mouthing (insincere) platitudes about her love for the masses. Pick your forbear: Lady Macbeth, Eva Peron or any of the currently interchangeable female dictators in South America.

It's not just those of us on the Right who despise the Clintons. My good friend, Les Leopold, comes at the Clintons from the Left:

The Democratic Party must nominate the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump. If Bernie wins California, Hillary is not the best candidate.

Oh, I hear the groans aplenty. Hillary won the most votes. Hillary has the most delegates. Bernie can’t possibly win against the Republican attack machine. Katha Pollitt in The Nation colorfully expresses the position heard often from progressive Hillary supporters:

“I just don’t believe Americans are ready for a 74-year-old self-described socialist with a long far-left CV who would raise their taxes by quite a lot. By the time the Republicans got finished with him, he’d be the love child of Rosa Luxemburg and the Ayatollah Khomeini, and then it’s hello, President Trump.”
But if Hillary loses California, what does that say about her ability to win in the fall? It would mean that she has alienated most white voters. It would mean she again has lost the vast majority of independents, a crucial category. It would mean she couldn’t win dog catcher among those under 30. And most importantly it would mean that she could lose to Trump.

Precisely. The Left wants to make this a starkly ideological election: Sanders the communist vs. Trump the capitalist. A rogue L'il Orphan Annie vs. Daddy Warbucks! The poor Lithuanian peasant heroes of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle vs. the meatpacking overlords. Sanders would make it so. And, frankly, that would be the best thing for the country: let's have it out, and let's have it out now.

But it won't happen. Even should the FBI recommend Hillary's prosecution on multiple grounds, it's unlikely that the Obama "justice department" would prosecute. After all, right now Barry has it both ways: he can make Hillary dance to his tune or send her to slam, and there's not a damn thing she can do about it. Real Chicago Mob stuff; and it's at times like this that we should remember that Saul Alinksy himself once worked with Al Capone.

Further Sanders-for-real vs. Sanders-the-makebelieve-candidate would be handily destroyed by the GOP, even with the entire press corps rooting for him. Pictures of life in Venezuela right now would be all that it takes. Still, in my heart, I'm rooting for Sanders, one of the most implausible American presidential candidates of all time. Having Sanders on the ballot would finally force the Democrats out from behind their masks and reveal them for what they truly are: a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, and one dedicated to feasting off the corpse of the American experiment while professing fealty to it. The reason they've rigged the game for Hillary is that they don't want Sanders blowing their cover.

Despicable is too nice a word for them.

It's easy to understand, and respect, the opposition of the #neverTrump brigade. Trump is not a "movement conservative" (although I highly doubt that many in the kiddkie korps of kommentators even understand what that means), nor does he pretend to be one. Having watched him since 1981, when I first arrived in Manhattan to work for Time magazine, he appears to have only his own ego as his guiding star; in this, he is not unlike the Clintons.

On the other hand, if the thought of Hillary Clinton -- whose Id rages even more furiously than Trump's -- as president doesn't terrify you, I suggest checking yourself for a pulse. Mrs. Clinton, filled with hatred and a lust for vengeance that would put Hagen to shame, would rampage through the American government like none other, Obama himself included. Obama, after all, only hates America as founded, and wished to "fundamentally transform" the country according to his second-hand socialist whims. His revenge was learned, generic; he will be thrilled to have the sucker taxpayers keep him in style for the rest of his life, and then some.

But with Hillary, this time it's personal. All the rejection (from her husband, and from the voters) is about to go critical, and the explosion will be something to behold -- from far away, which is where I plan to be. It's your vote, and it counts as much as anyone else's. But this year, it's not about ideology. It's about us.

SOURCE

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