Some would call me a leftist, I imagine, so I feel somewhat obligated to respond to this.
Here's his argument. Something like this? Correct me if I'm being dishonest.
1) Liberals look at history and the ideologies of man, the forms of government, religion, and so forth have not stopped war, poverty, crime, injustice, etc.
2) Liberals think that since all these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the source of all war, etc., must be found in the attempt to be right, because if nobody tried to be right we wouldn't disagree we wouldn't fight, we wouldn't go to war, which means no crime, etc.
3) Therefore, liberals conclude, we must reject all fact, reason, truth, logic, morality, and decency, just like in the song "Imagine."
4) To achieve this devious goal, liberals thus elevate everything that is wrong and tear down everything that is right.
Evidence:
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
NYT breaking the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Newsweek's Koran story.
The Piss Christ.
The Academy Awards.
By the way, this is only a huge conspiracy orchestrated by the elite liberals and not all the rank and file believe this. Thus the elite propagandize the rank and file with school, TV, movies, etc. that rational thought is an act of bigotry. Therefore, the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought.
Liberals think that the only way to eliminate discrimination is to become utterly indiscriminate, which is why we don't have racial profiling at the airport. Discrimination is the heart of rationality, so liberals reject rationality as a hate crime.
On and on. Liberals hold opinions dogmatically, and believe in obviously ridiculous things. UN, etc. Liberals hate anyone who discriminates in any way.
Liberals are postmodern, basically. They don't believe in objective reality and rationality. They assume that successful things must have cheated and failures must have been discriminated against. Therefore they elevate evil and denigrate good.
Example: the media doesn't use the word terrorist to describe Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc. as terrorist.
My reaction? This guy sets up a whole parade of liberal strawmen, or extreme examples like Ward Churchill, who hold all sorts of outrageous views and uses them to build a whole ideological edifice on top of it. Pull out a few of the strawmen, and the whole thing comes crashing down, so here goes.
He makes a brutal, cynical, and terribly dishonest caricature of "Liberalism" in the outset. He makes a bunch of idiotic and misleading either-or comparisons. The notion that liberals believe that America deserved 9/11 is tremendously offensive. We are not all Ward Churchill just like conservatives are all not David Duke. There's a difference between talking about what we could do in the Middle East to reduce the chance of terrorists attacking us and blaming the United States for 9/11. There's a difference between opposing the Iraq War and supporting Saddam Hussein. During the Cold War when the Hungarian rebellion was brutally crushed, liberals sympathized with the states under the cruel yoke of the Soviets, but they realized that war with the USSR would be even worse for the Eastern Europeans. There's a difference between sympathizing with the plight of the Palestinians and seeking the destruction the state of Israel. There's a difference between supporting sex education and promoting promiscuity. And so on. The end.
Here's his argument. Something like this? Correct me if I'm being dishonest.
1) Liberals look at history and the ideologies of man, the forms of government, religion, and so forth have not stopped war, poverty, crime, injustice, etc.
2) Liberals think that since all these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the source of all war, etc., must be found in the attempt to be right, because if nobody tried to be right we wouldn't disagree we wouldn't fight, we wouldn't go to war, which means no crime, etc.
3) Therefore, liberals conclude, we must reject all fact, reason, truth, logic, morality, and decency, just like in the song "Imagine."
4) To achieve this devious goal, liberals thus elevate everything that is wrong and tear down everything that is right.
Evidence:
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
NYT breaking the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Newsweek's Koran story.
The Piss Christ.
The Academy Awards.
By the way, this is only a huge conspiracy orchestrated by the elite liberals and not all the rank and file believe this. Thus the elite propagandize the rank and file with school, TV, movies, etc. that rational thought is an act of bigotry. Therefore, the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought.
Liberals think that the only way to eliminate discrimination is to become utterly indiscriminate, which is why we don't have racial profiling at the airport. Discrimination is the heart of rationality, so liberals reject rationality as a hate crime.
On and on. Liberals hold opinions dogmatically, and believe in obviously ridiculous things. UN, etc. Liberals hate anyone who discriminates in any way.
Liberals are postmodern, basically. They don't believe in objective reality and rationality. They assume that successful things must have cheated and failures must have been discriminated against. Therefore they elevate evil and denigrate good.
Example: the media doesn't use the word terrorist to describe Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc. as terrorist.
My reaction? This guy sets up a whole parade of liberal strawmen, or extreme examples like Ward Churchill, who hold all sorts of outrageous views and uses them to build a whole ideological edifice on top of it. Pull out a few of the strawmen, and the whole thing comes crashing down, so here goes.
He makes a brutal, cynical, and terribly dishonest caricature of "Liberalism" in the outset. He makes a bunch of idiotic and misleading either-or comparisons. The notion that liberals believe that America deserved 9/11 is tremendously offensive. We are not all Ward Churchill just like conservatives are all not David Duke. There's a difference between talking about what we could do in the Middle East to reduce the chance of terrorists attacking us and blaming the United States for 9/11. There's a difference between opposing the Iraq War and supporting Saddam Hussein. During the Cold War when the Hungarian rebellion was brutally crushed, liberals sympathized with the states under the cruel yoke of the Soviets, but they realized that war with the USSR would be even worse for the Eastern Europeans. There's a difference between sympathizing with the plight of the Palestinians and seeking the destruction the state of Israel. There's a difference between supporting sex education and promoting promiscuity. And so on. The end.
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