« | Main | Watching the Mid East Pot Bubble »
February 27, 2005
Sanity, and Comments
Dr. Sanity has had an encounter with insanity of the left. She analyzes the reactions to a previous post in which she attempted to examine the issues of civil liberties in a wartime environment. After a string of ad hominem attacks along with comments such as, "Jesus would slap the shit out you.", she writes:
I must say that I could not possibly make up better evidence documenting the hysteria (noun: meaning "exaggerated emotional response") of the Left. I could not possibly have asked for better examples of projection, denial, or distortion.
I suggest[ed] that there be a rational discussion about the issue of civil liberties during war--what are the legal precedents; what are the differences between being an American citizen and not? What is the definition of "enemy combatant" and how is that different from a POW? These are all important legal questions [...]
Anyway, I suggest[ed] a discussion based on differing viewpoints and possibly differing outlooks with the goal of finding some compromise that will not be "national suicide". For that suggestion, I am hit with comparisons of Nazi Germany (always a favorite of the Left to compare anything they don't like to the Nazis); accused of supporting a "war for oil"; and supporting torture.
She goes on to quote another commenter:
This appears to be the Left's idea of a rational discussion. Bush and Crew became constitutional traitors, and fifth columnists, when they broke with our Constitution, and ignored our Bill of Rights, after 9/11.
This statement is the same type of distortion that plagues the Left. Anyone who disagrees with them are obviously "traitors" (a psychological projection--it is their own thoughts that likely dwell on betrayal).
This is so typical. I know there are also some unhinged commenters from the right, but these are so utterly predictable, so familiar in their complete disregard for the simplest line of reasoning.
Getting at the source of the irrationality of the left is really one of the main reasons I started this blog. My working hypothesis is that two historical threads have converged into a "perfect storm": 1) the transfer of Marxist ideas from the field of economic geopolitics to that of culture; and 2) the attack of "progressive" educational theorists on the classical curriculum. Both of these threads have at their center an inherent animosity toward the individual, and his associated rights; the idea of reasoned debate based on the evaluation of empirical evidence (witness the relativism of the cultural studies gang); and ultimately the value of any accumulated (meaning, of course, Western) knowledge.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thebernoullieffect.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/29
