A Theoretical Deconstruction of Liberalism

The basis of liberalism needs to be inspected and a complete autopsy performed on this disease. We ought to begin the dissection of liberalism by examining one of their most celebrated (and intellectually dishonest), tenets: egalitarianism.

Among the numerous, many incoherent, fluid versions of the term egalitarianism we learn that “everyone ought to be equal in economic and social opportunity.” One might think this an obvious and noble goal until the political and economic mechanisms of the implementation of this concept are inspected closely. Here, as is most usual, we find the inevitable link to communism where such an egalitarian doctrine specifies that everyone is supposed to enjoy material equality. That did work in Cambodia and North Korea according to certain notions of equality. Dead people are equal-- at least in a political sense. Noting that 100,000,000 people died as a direct result of this energetic far-leftist political notion, we can only show contempt for such a preposterous idea. People are not equal and probably shouldn’t be in any case. There is no way for the far-left and Marxists to gain equality without mass murder and/or confiscatory taxes or both and this theory is built into egalitarianism.

The snake oil theoretical basis of egalitarianism is touted by the understandable observation that material inequality is pervasive in the current economic systems globally. How novel! This corresponds with every worldwide observation dating back least 4000 years BCE with no contrary examples. The spurious details of egalitarianism start to brighten to the observer when it is made very clear that some method of forced material redistribution is necessary and mandatory for realization of this concept. Here is where the problems begin. The eternal quest for a governing body to exercise absolute coercive powers of material redistribution upon the masses have been tested, in limited numbers, by certain dictatorial political operatives thus producing the very inequalities of political power and inhuman coercion of the polis in exactly the manner that they complain about in their phony manifesto.

As in the French Revolution, “…the second most important event in history according to Lenin (or was that Stalin?),” there was no limit to the abuses of the Bolsheviki and their lackeys could use in grabbing material wealth and wholesale murder and genocide and wasting it in failed social projects doomed to disappointment due to the intrinsic faults in the general theory. 20,000,000 Kulaks were murdered, several million Ukrainians were starved and some 30 million Russians died to support this concept of egalitarianism. The wealth in those cases were merely transferred to the Marxist elites and shared within their ‘Communist Party.’ They promptly exhausted these resources and hid away money in Swiss bank accounts. The USSR collapsed in 1989. But, there is no apology from the left for these actions and no call for something like a Russian War Crimes Tribunal to investigate how 60,000,000 people were murdered in the USSR and more in the People’s Republic of China and elsewhere. When 100,000,000 people die and certain political groups voice no serious objections we know there is a major problem yet to be solved.

The followers of Lenin, Castro, Sung, Ho and others did ‘redistribute’ shares of material resources in a vastly unequal manner to their political cronies, thus ignoring the tenets of egalitarianism in their selfish, ruthless and misguided cases. Party members suddenly became the material elites that they had previously ranted against and the masses remained hungry or dead. The promises of ‘land reform’ and ‘rule by the masses’ were short-lived. But, they had the loot!

The United States Declaration of Independence declares “all men are created equal", and, as such, each person should receive equal treatment under the law. The political assertion that "all men are created equal" fails in the face of world history everywhere. It is a goal. People are unfortunately not equal and espousing the classless system designed by the left is merely an excuse for murder and confiscation of power and wealth. Just check out the SAT and public school test scores and wonder why people are not equal, or even close to being so. Check the high school graduation statistics.

All US citizens ought to be equal under the law, but not politically mandated to be equal in intellectual gifts, attitude, achievements or economic abilities. We might as well dump school tests and give away jobs at random. That would be a fine method for the left to select our brain surgeons. It turns out that favored leftist legislation actually forces inequality in the law by discriminating against many because of their color or other political an economic attributes. Examples of this include set-asides, reverse discrimination, quotas and certain court rulings that frequently are the reverse what the voters wanted. We have to manage ‘equality’ so that every person gets fair treatment and they are not just sorted politically where certain groups are sequestered in the gulags or mass graves, as is the celebrated leftist egalitarian solution to this problem. The left is actually against equality and equal treatment because if ordinary people are allowed to exercise their entrepreneurial skills they will defeat the egalitarian precepts and obtain unequal wealth. Such is the history of the bourgeoisie, the enemy of socialism and Marxism. Those who are unskilled or besotted with drugs and crime will sink to the bottom of society. All men were created equal but some choose to become unequal by their actions. The left needs those who cannot cope to fill their ranks with howls and votes. Their vote is a cheap purchase.

Modern liberalism depends, desperately, upon the concept of egalitarianism for their power base. Their bourgeois opponents have the wealth so they are the only source of this substance. Nobody ever accused the left of getting rich in honest business. Liberals must grunt and grab as much of this wealth base as possible. No liberal in good standing would ever suggest a tax cut. Or, if they did as a cheap artifice, recalling Clinton’s Middle Class Tax Cut would quickly drop the notion after the power was obtained to do so, as he quickly did after the election. No tax relief!

We find from the literature of political fiction (George Orwell’s Animal Farm) that "All Animals Are Equal, but the pigs seemed to be more equal than others”. The pigs in this reference are the liberals or their more violent Marxist congeners. This is the actual basis of egalitarianism: use any phony doctrine or persuasive slogan promising some unearned wealth to the masses, preferable festooned with gooey precepts, and then proceed to grunt and then grab the wealth and spend it on yourselves.

Egalitarianism is just a slick political system designed to confiscate your wealth and is merely a political construct that only benefits the ‘more equal pigs.’

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UK: Illiberal liberals are closing minds, not opening them

Which came first: the alt-right or the social-justice movement?

Will Donald Trump eventually be toppled by leftist activism, or will such activism guarantee his second term in office?

Is Katie Hopkins right to describe herself as the creation of her enemies, as the ‘monster’ to the liberal-left’s Dr Frankenstein?

Do attempts to shut down free speech on university campuses prevent the dissemination of extremist views, or make such views more likely to gain traction?

It’s a circular pattern that appears to be accelerating, largely thanks to the nuance-free arena of social media. As politics becomes more polarised, each side is resorting to increasingly distorted caricatures of the other. It’s like a pair of duellists retreating indefinitely until they are no more than blurs on the horizon. This explains why so many online spats feel as though people are lashing out at imaginary opponents.

This leaves us in a quandary. More than ever, we are in need of frank discussion about the issues that matter most. But with figures on all sides of the political spectrum so determined to double down on their alienating and ad hominem strategies, the possibility of debate is seriously curtailed. The rapper Joyner Lucas has addressed this problem in his recent viral hit ‘I’m Not Racist’, which presents two men – one white, one black – candidly airing their grievances. One commentator found the conceit ‘exhausting’, claiming that ‘the notion that social divisions [can] be reconciled through “honest” conversation’ is ‘hopelessly outdated’. God help us if he’s right.

It’s an attitude that is entirely self-defeating. The ongoing demonisation of those who voted to leave the European Union has all but ensured the impossibility of a second referendum. Smearing one’s opponents as ‘racist’ or ‘stupid’ may be satisfying in the short term, but it’s unlikely to change any minds. Nor is it supported by the facts. A recent study by the think-tank Open Europe has revealed that although immigration was a major factor in the referendum, the vast majority of voters have a ‘far more nuanced and sophisticated’ attitude on the subject than is generally acknowledged. Likewise, the inaccurate and promiscuous use of terms such as ‘Nazi’ and ‘fascist’ has been a boon to the far right, particularly in the US. It has enabled vile fringe groups to claim a level of support they simply do not have.

Uncritical fealty to any given ideology is always a bad idea, because ideologies are only ever sustained through over-simplification. In their current forms, the far right and the liberal-left are equally reactionary movements. Both are mired in identity politics – a xenophobic form of nationalism on the one hand, and intersectional victimhood on the other – and consequently neither is capable of rational debate.  Each ideology feeds on the other, existing only to counter its antithesis.

Part of the problem is that many who identify as ‘left-wing’ are nothing of the sort. There is nothing leftist about campus radicalism that promotes No Platforming and censorship. There is nothing leftist about the kind of slippery wordplay that sees the Daily Mail redefined as ‘far right’. There is nothing leftist about identity politics in its prevailing form, because it fails to recognise the centrality of class when it comes to social and economic opportunity. There’s a simple test: if you think the Guardian is left-wing, then you’re probably not left-wing.

Whether or not the hijacking of the left was the principal contributory factor to Trump’s success is one of those chicken-and-egg questions that is difficult to answer. What we can say for certain is that the tactics of these illiberal self-styled ‘leftists’ is generating the very conditions through which the likes of Trump are able to thrive. Resentment is a powerful emotion. We have already seen what happens when a presidential candidate writes off half of the electorate as ‘deplorables’. This hasn’t stopped supposed progressives from insisting that if you are white ‘your DNA is an abomination’, or that heterosexual men ‘hate women’ if they do not acknowledge their ‘toxic masculinity’. Such commentators haven’t so much shot themselves in the foot, as opted directly for the full amputation.

We are dealing with forms of zealotry that are more religious than political. There is a very good reason why Joseph Schumpeter devoted an entire chapter to ‘Marx the Prophet’ in his seminal work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). He understood that once a series of tenets are accepted as articles of faith, debate is no longer feasible. In such instances, says Schumpeter, ‘the opponent is not merely in error but in sin. Dissent is disapproved of not only intellectually but also morally. There cannot be any excuse for it once the Message has been revealed.’

This is why the new illiberal leftists are unlikely to deviate from the self-destructive path they have chosen. In these precarious times, we should be aspiring to a form of political discourse that is at once nuanced and open-minded. Instead, we are likely to see greater degrees of polarisation. Herbert Spencer opens his First Principles (1862) by reminding us that ‘when passing judgment on the opinions of others’, we should be willing to concede that even an erroneous proposition contains ‘a nucleus of reality’. For those of us who wish to remedy our degraded culture of political debate, this might be a good place to start.

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So Much for Using the 25th Amendment Against Trump

 

For some time now, Democrats and their media allies have obsessed about the president’s health — particularly his mental fitness — largely as 25th Amendment groundwork for their pathetic impeachment campaign. So the report given Tuesday by the White House’s lead physician, Navy Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, deflated their hopes:

In summary, the president’s overall health is excellent. His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. … We discussed diet, exercise and weight loss. He would benefit from a diet that is lower in fat and carbohydrates and from a routine exercise regimen. … All clinical data indicates that the president is currently very healthy and that he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.

Jackson has spent a lot of time with Trump, and his report certainly calls into question all the baloney from author Michael Wolff and his book, Fire and Fury. “The guy can’t go put one coherent sentence after another,” Wolff insists. “He’s off. He can’t stay on subject. He can’t stay on point.” News outlets likewise have featured psychiatrists “diagnosing” Trump despite never having even met him. That got so bad the American Psychiatric Association told shrinks to knock it off with violating the “Goldwater Rule” — questioning from afar the mental state of a public figure.

In fact, due to the Left’s incessant questions, Trump insisted that he also take some sort of cognitive test, so Jackson complied, though he noted it was the first time a sitting president had undergone such a test. Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the very extensive Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Jackson noted, “If he had some type of mental, cognitive issue … this test is sensitive enough. It would pick up on it. He would not have gotten 30 out of 30 on the test. So I’m very confident at this particular stage that he has nothing like that going on.”

Oh, and by the way, Jackson was also Barack Obama’s personal physician, and, as you recall, Obama refused to release some of his medical records…

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