Many people don't notice this, but liberals always speak of
people by the group they belong to - African Americans, gays, whites,
Hispanics, women, poor people, etc. They talk about the rights of people as a function of
belonging to a group - gay rights, women's rights, etc. They don't speak of
people as just people in general. The liberals are not color blind. Far from
it. They are keenly aware of race and gender and other group statuses because they
are the ones promoting separate factions and pitting groups against each other
for their own ends. If you don't believe me, just listen to them sometime. They can hardly talk about anything without making it all about special groups. And in the irony of ironies, they have somehow managed to
convince a lot of people that it's the conservatives who are racist and sexist.
Liberals don't really care about gays or women or
children or poor people. They just want votes and to be thought inclusive and
tolerant. It's all part of their image. But they don't actually want to help
anyone or stop hatred. In fact, they're very good at promoting hatred
(especially against Christianity and conservatism) and drumming it up where it
doesn't exist. They survive on the hatred and misunderstanding between groups.
They want the country splintered into different groups that all have grudges
against each other. That way, they can pretend to commiserate with all the
separate groups and promise them help in exchange for votes and money. They
need people to be riled up and upset so that they can swoop down with their
promises of change and trade people a "government solution" in
exchange for their freedom.
How do we know liberals don’t really want to help? Because they don’t actually
help. Liberal policies don’t produce good results. They don’t cure poverty or
stop racism or protect rights. Their policies are carefully crafted to look
good on the surface, but not stop the evils of society, because it is the
existence of those evils that keeps everyone coming back to liberals for “solutions.”
To cover this failure of their policies, liberals are very good at turning the conversation away from the actual results
of their policies and talking instead about all their good motives.
On the other hand, the conservative emphasis on freedom and personal
responsibility and equal rights for all does help reduce poverty and racism and
treats people as equals, but without taking freedom or money away from one
group to give it to another. Conservatives don’t have to whine and pander to
special interest groups and tell them all how terrible they have it to get
votes. So we have no interest in keeping people down or making them hate one
another. We want people prosperous and free, not dependent on us. A healthy,
free, and productive society is better for everyone. A society of separate
factions that hate each other is bad for everyone – except liberal politicians.
Conservatives, unlike liberals, see people as just people. We realize
they belong to different groups, but conservatives see the humanity of other
people first. We recognize our similarities as being more important than our
differences. And so the idea of special gay rights or women's rights or
minority rights are a foreign concept to us. All human beings have the same
rights by virtue of being human. Rights don't come from group membership. There
are no special rights that some groups have and others don't. We conservatives
aren't for gay rights or women's rights or any other special rights based on
group status, but not because we're against gays or women or blacks or any
group (as liberals like to claim). We're against these special rights precisely because we see all people as
being inherently equal. There are only human rights, and all humans have them.
"Many people don't notice this, but liberals always speak of people by the group they belong to"
ReplyDeleteNot really: we tend to do that only when it makes statistical sense to refer to groups and their, say, differential treatment.
Of course, idiots (both on the left and on the right) may do as you claim, but why should anyone argue with them?
Hi Lindsay. I think you are both right and wrong. Liberals (and I dislike the term liberal as applied to the modern version) are not uncaring power seekers. They really believe they are doing good. I (and you) disagree but they think we are wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of 'group' rights is a subset of communist ideology called "corporatism" and was integral to fascism, another subset of communism. "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini. Corporate, in this sense, means any generic group, unions, churches, business groups, racial or ethnic groups, etc. The group speaks for the individual and the government deals with the group.
In a secular culture there is no logical basis for human rights. Rights are established by power groups within the state - corporate entities - and their influence is coextensive with their power to push their agenda through votes or violence. Given that 'liberals', even 'liberals' who profess a religion, operate from a secular reality model they do not have a strong belief in inherent human rights. Our rights are those privileges which we take by force or that we coerce the state to dispense. The more power we wield the more right we win.
The Christian (and some conservatives/libertarians etc.) believes that God endowed us with certain rights and a moral sense which illumines those rights and is able, by faith, to stand on his own. People like Martin Luther King Jr. who stood against the state, Martin Luther who stood against state and church, and all the martyrs, saints, and apostles who have taken their own stand as individuals speaking the word of God. But it takes a visceral trust in the truth and reality of God to give a man (or woman) the strength to stand against tyranny and not blink, even in the face of death.
So the lukewarm Christian and the secularist seeks strength in numbers. They want to do good for the downtrodden and so organize them into groups and speak out for them. They attack those whom they see as powerful exploiters of the downtrodden. Chesterton made note of this when he wrote, "The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage." (Orthodoxy, Ch.3)
Disagree. There are many conservatives who have made racist, elisted, and sexist statements. Both sides claim to want to help the poor. It depends on whose ideas you think will work best. Do you believe in trickle down ecomics or spreading the wealth through the law? Should companies be given huge tax breaks? Should companies pay workers poorly and then the government provide assistance to the people(currently the way it works) or should a living wage be paid to everyone?
ReplyDeleteI most definitely do not support spreading wealth by force of law. No one has a right to something someone else worked for. In fact, redistributing wealth by taking it from the worker by force is a violation of the worker's property rights. No one has a right to get anything for free - not even food or water or shelter. We all have a right to work as we choose to provide them for ourselves. But if we have a right to get things for free, then someone must be forced to work to provide them to us - which means that person would be our slave. That is a violation of the right to liberty.
DeleteNot only is wealth redistribution a violation of property rights, but it's not necessary to help the poor. It's not like there's only a limited amount of wealth and some people are going to be unable to live unless you take from the rich. A lot people think it's a zero-sum game, but it's not. Wealth is created by work and innovation that adds value to the economy. Thus, people can create wealth - wealth that didn't exist before - by working and innovating. And when you promote work and innovation, you make more wealth to go around. When you discourage work by penalizing workers, you make it harder to create wealth and make everyone worse off.
And, no, I don't support giving a "living wage" to everyone. You have to earn a living by making your skills valuable enough or working hard enough.
http://lindsays-logic.blogspot.com/2014/08/need-based-vs-value-based-wages.html
This Demonizing of "Liberals" is exactly what I hate about the modern American church.
ReplyDeleteI am an American Christian somewhere in the center politically and, uh, sorry. I think that, however much you disagree with someone, it's important to respect their own portrayal of their beliefs and goals (not necessarily agree, but at least respect). Ascribing evil motivations to your "opponents" (as if argument was a mere game to win) is a sure sign of vitriolic writing and can only close people's minds to what you're saying.
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