A very good essay by Vasko Kohlmayer, at American Thinker;
Virtually demolishing the West�s traditional morality, the Left has managed to legitimize promiscuity, illegitimacy, abortion and homosexuality. This transformation has reached a point where in many quarters these behaviors are not only considered acceptable but outright commendable.
Through its aggressive atheism, the Left has succeeded in virtually eliminating Christianity from our public arena, and to a large degree from the private sphere as well. This trend has been especially pronounced in Europe where only some seven percent of the population engage in some form of regular religious observance.
The Left�s seemingly insatiable hunger for governmental expansion has bucked the West�s long-term trend toward the limited State. Dominated by large, all-intrusive welfare states, the condition of many European countries could be justifiably described as soft socialism. The excessive taxation and regulation which are the inevitable byproducts of this have virtually strangled their free economic enterprise and induced long-term economic malaise. Diametrically opposed to the ideals of classical liberalism, this state of affairs represents a complete subversion of western political and economic tradition.
By teaching that the masterpieces of the West�s greatest creative minds are no more intrinsically valuable than artifacts of far less advanced societies, the Left has deprived westerners� of their justified pride in their own culture. And by lying about the West�s past, it has managed to suppress our consciousness of historical greatness.
The Left�s successes have been largely due to its takeover of the two main channels for the dissemination of knowledge and information � the media and academia. Careful to avoid positive portrayal of the West in almost any context, they abound in aspersions and criticism. In the process, the Left has devised an ingenious and effective mode of censorship to further its ends. It is called political correctness.
Read the whole thing.
Sticking with the theme….
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It would be so cute with your orange jumpsuit, dahling … |
4) do we believe in the inherent rights and dignity of every individual?
….If you answer “yes” to all of these (I do)…
No you don’t. You believe in “tolerating” the killing of the most defenseless among us.
ol hoss, you are correct to not associate Christianity with the laws of men. Christianity is the philosophy of life, spirituality is not mentality; it is not intellectual and it is not emotional, it is spiritual. Everyone dies and the way we live has a lot to do with the way we die; birth and death are by far the biggest events in our lives and ignoring these two events is the way to true death – note the ‘enlightened’ versions of death in the Cistine Chapel painted by the Rennaisance Man, Michelangelo.
GM, you are not correct about Athens, ol hoss is – Athens was not a Democracy in the Golden Age, it was a Dictatorship -run by an enlightened dictator who believed in Democracy. The dictator’s name was Pericles, he was a friend of Sophecles, Socrates, Phiadias, Plato… – all these men lived at the same time! Pericles and thousands of Athenians died in a terrible plague; the plague weakened Athens more than the many wars they had engaged in for a few hundred years but the decay was in the backbone of people, grown too soft. Athenians were not willing to fight anymore, they loved decadance and luxury more than they loved Freedom. BTW, slavery was not a moral evil in ancient Greece; it was a state of being, you cannot pass judgement on those ancient people for that evil, they accepted it as we accept state slavery (taxation).
Christianity, through spirituality, freed men and women from the tyranny of other humans. The ability to rise above the earthy station and exist as a free person is the gift of Christianity to every living soul. The wonder of such a gift is overwelming and it enables all people to know real power over their own lives. The loss of Christianity as a powerful force in human’s lives is the recipe for slavery and all the evils that accompany sub- serviance of people to other mortals.
ol hoss,
there you go again, taking a selective reading of my words:
“Democracy is just mob rule. It has been used as such many times. Hitler used it to come to power.”
…which is why i don’t support mob rule.
classical liberal Democracy is NOT the same as mob rule. Every philosopher on the subject has said as much (see: john stuart mill, “On liberty”, or James Madison & Alexander Hamilton: “the Federalist papers”)
Canada, the U.K., U.S.A., France, etc. are all examples of classical liberal democratic principles (voting rights, free speech, separation of powers, usually enumerated constitutional rights, etc.).
I didn’t say: “can you name any democratically elected leaders who have been genocidal?’
I said “can you name me an occaision where same is true of the ideals of classical liberal democracy?” [i.e. where those ideas were used to justify terrible crimes]
If you want me to be more specific:
Can you name me a occaision where ideas like the rule of law, the separation of powers, universal voting rights, and free expression [the basic tentants/ideals of classical liberal democracy: see Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, etc] have been used to justify a terrible crime?
…………………………
“No you don’t. You believe in “tolerating” the killing of the most defenseless among us.”
We’ve had the abortion debate on another thread.
As I’ve said there, my support for choice is, in my view, a logical an necessary extension of my belief in individual dignity, though I admit it is a “hard case”.
We can agree on basic principles and disagree on the implications of them.
That said, I’d love to hear your answer to my final question:
6) What can be done to ensure that these ideas are better articulated and defended by the media/education system/ political leaders?
Your thoughts, please.
“Athenians were not willing to fight anymore, they loved decadance and luxury more than they loved Freedom. ”
A subjective statement.
Frankly, it depends on who you read.
I am aware of the nature of Pericles’ government.
Do you deny, however, that we owe them the idealogical framework for much of democracy?
As Socrates and plato often pointed out, Athenian ideals were never properly realized in their time, but I stand by their value nonetheless.
But I’m happy to have another reader of the classics on board. I’ll speak in fewer generalities next time.
Cheers…
There you go again, GM, confusing a tool, a mechanism, for morals, standards and virtues. That’s why you have those leftist thoughts.
Anyway, as Thomas Jefferson said, Plato’s writings are full of “”sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities.”
Can you name me a occaision where ideas like the rule of law, the separation of powers, universal voting rights, and free expression [the basic tentants/ideals of classical liberal democracy: see Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, etc] have been used to justify a terrible crime?
You mean like abortion, slavery…? Enslaving people in a culture of entitlement in the name of liberty and tolerance? That kind of crime?
Laws and systems can be used for good or ill, it’s the morality of the people that make the difference.
Gramscian damage
Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use �extremist� as a negative epithetic. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.
We don�t expect ideas to matter � or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the �root causes� of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists� very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.
…
In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union�s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:
* There is no truth, only competing agendas.
* All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West�s history of racism and colonialism.
* There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
* The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
* Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
* The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
* For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But �oppressed� people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
* When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist�s point of view, and make concessions.
As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you�ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein �world system� thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by �progressives� (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia. +
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260
…Athenian ideals were never properly realized in their time, but I stand by their value nonetheless.
Heh, the same argument leftists use in defense of Marx. You’ve learned well.
Hi ol hoss,
First, Democratic ideals, to me, ARE values.
Freedom and democracy are not tools, they are values, values which must be cultivated and preserved between generations. They are as dear to me as i assume christ is to you.
I would, if need be, die for these ideals.
Yes, slavery was a terrible wrong. But it was NOT done in the name of democracy.
It was done in a democratic society, but classical liberal arguments were not used to provide a pretext for it.Not in the way that, for example, the inquisition was justified as the work of god.
(not that it actually was, of course)
As for abortion, i guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
……………………
On a totally random note, I actually like Jefferson’s critique of plato. I’m more of an Aristotle guy myself. But nice use of the quote.
………………………
“Heh, the same argument leftists use in defense of Marx. You’ve learned well.”
Well, no, it isn’t.
please note the use of the words “in it’s time”.
I would argue that what I have termed “Athenian Values” (you may call them what you wish) have worked quite well and have been implemented quite comprehensively in many modern societies (see: almost all of the western world).
Marxism invariably fails.
Freedom and reason generally work.
But I digress.
…………………………..
We’ve had quite a nice debate over the origin and nature of western values. I now invite you to propose how to best preserve them.
1) if we term “western values” (again, use any term you like) to include liberty, reason, equality, democracy, and respect for the individual, then I think we can agree that “western values” are important.
2) so how do we best protect them from a)Islamic Facism from the outside and b)mushy post-modernism from within?
Your ideas?
Maz2,
Excellent synopsis of the intellectual diseases being propigated on campuses everywhere.
I would add that these ideas are being protected by intellectually blinding political correctness and an anti-west bias in faculty that keeps free deabte (the ultimate means of defeating them) to a minimum.
“Fallacies protected from questioning”
That is the problem.
I now invite you to propose how to best preserve them.
The way to preserve freedom is to recognize where freedom proceeds from. And it’s not from some man-made system.
As the Founding Fathers of the U.S. said, it’s self-evident.
Okay,
I can work with that…
“…that all men are created equal”
Wonderful use of my favorite document of all time.
One of the nice things about that phrase is that it can appeal to any faith/belief system that is rooted in human dignity.
The appeal of that phrase is nearly universal.
Yes, of course, it was used in a christian context, but it works with nearly every faith (Jefferson was basically an agnostic; see “the gospel of thomas”).
Rooting our values in universal equality & dignity is a great way to explain them.
(on a personal note, my passion for democracy and reason is rooted in the idea that they provide the only political system to recognize this truth)
We agreed on something. Go figure.
(on a personal note, my passion for democracy and reason is rooted in the idea that they provide the only political system to recognize this truth)
Neither Canada, or the U.S. of A. are democracies.
Canada is a Constitutional monarchy and the U.S. is a Republic.
In a Republic sovereignty resides in the individual. Whereas, in a democracy, sovereignty resides in the citizens as a whole. Making it the perfect vehicle for the leftist concept of group rights.
In a Constitutionl monarchy, sovereignty resides in the Crown. The Crown (gov’t) only being restrained by the Constitution. Rights (actually privileges), owned by the Crown, are given to the people.
In a democracy no truth exists except as decided by the majority. Again, the perfect leftist vehicle.
A simple example being that, in a republic, one vote can stop a jury. Not so in a democracy.
Well, if you want me to spell it out, then I suppose I could replace the word “democracy” with “classical liberal democracy”, as defined by Locke, Mill, Jefferson, etc.
This concept embraces limits on majority rule and protection of individual rights. So in this sense it includes both republics and constitutional monarchies.
I would’ve thought that this was implied, based on my constant invocation of the concept.
But now we’re just taking about semantics.
Ol Hoss:
I agree with most of what you are saying about a democracy, except for it being the perfect leftist vehicle. Chretien on legislating SSM into law said that he wouldn’t leave the passing of such legislation up to the unwashed public. He went on to rationalize his position by saying, imagine if a free vote was the case with regards to federal bilingualism, it would never have passed. The leftist Martin fulfilled Chretiens plan, requiring his cabinet to vote with his position.
In Canada, the ‘perfect leftist vehicle’ is the charter – written, enshrined and can only be defined by leftist dictators. Otherwise known as Liberals.
I agree with most of what you are saying about a democracy, except for it being the perfect leftist vehicle. Chretien on legislating SSM into law said that he wouldn’t leave the passing of such legislation up to the unwashed public.
A perfectly logical view in a supposed democracy where there are no truths. Where there are no truths someone will certainly step in and impose their own. It’s a vaccuum waiting to be filled.
That wouldn’t happen where natural rights are enumerated…life, liberty, etc. Being that ssm is not natural, or seen in nature.
Your complaint about the charter is really a complaint about democracy not having any truths except those revealed through the majority. That means justices can interpret the charter however they wish so long as a majority of them agree.
I appreciate the remarks of “Ol Hoss” regarding the pitfalls of a democracy versus a republic.
I believe Ayn Rand made some comments on democracies, using the hyperbolized comparison that if three people are stranded on a desert island & two of them decide to kill & eat the other one, that’s a form of democracy. She made a salient point when she stated that without property rights very little in the way of individual rights exist.
… I think Martin made some wild claims that the Conservatives desire to enshrine property rights in the charter would somehow take the country back to Dickensian England! It’s nice to be free from that troll representing us as our PM.
Left bashing is really popular, all right, but let me ask a question: is the U.S. government bigger or smaller since Bush took command?
Anybody want to take a bet on whether Canadian government will be bigger or smaller under Harper?
You might like to think that the bad guys are the guys you don’t like, but reducing the size of government is extremely difficult, even for our beloved right wing rulers.