Sometimes I don't think that the left truly thinks things through. If they took their beliefs to their logical conclusions they would probably be horrified at what they are truly suggesting.

For example, the "death with dignity" crowd often adopts a phrase used by the Nazis to justify their early eugenics campaign. The euthanasia crowd often speaks of not only "death with dignity" but ending "a life not worth living". What they fail to think about is the final conclusion of that second phrase. It is fine if YOU are the one deciding if your life is worth living or not. But what if you are incapacitated? Then it falls to someone else to decide. And, by that logic, what if you are BORN incapacitated? Who is to say if those born with brain damage have a life worth living? In the end, the logic of "a life not worth living" ends the same place the Nazis took it. Approaching the phrase with flawless logic, the Nazis set up euthanasia programs to eliminate the insane, the mentally retarded, the brain damaged and others who were sufficiently defective that they had lives "not worth living." It is a result most liberals (sadly not all) would abhor, but it is inherent in the logic of their belief in euthanasia, at least so long as they approach it through the lens of "a life not worth living".*

Other times, it is not the conclusion which the liberals ignore, but the contradictions. And that is my topic for today.

You see, the liberals have for a long time campaigned for what is essentially a coarsening of our society. They have opposed the "censorship" of the media, not distinguishing between government or private standards. To them, no standards are good, anything should be allowed. Similarly, the left has opposed any sort of standards of behavior, arguing along with the hippies of old (all of them following the lead set long ago by that proto-hippie Rousseau), that any standards of decency or decorum are just oppression and we should be free to live as we want.  And I admit that in my early life I was even part of this stupidity, both as a young leftist, and a slightly older Rand-worshipper. Admittedly, my arguments changed, my hippie self arguing for a freedom from artificial constraints, and my Rand-idolizing self arguing only against government restrictions, but in both cases I was still an agitator against decorum and decency.

There are a lot of arguments against this libertine position, many quite strong, but one of the most common is that such a brutish media culture has many ill effects on children. And to the specific complaint that foul language is not something we want children to hear, they respond specifically that obscenities are "just words" and incapable of harming children.

Which is where the contradiction comes in.

You see, the left has fought a war on words for some time. We generally hear of it under the rubric "PC". They argue that racial slurs, "insensitive comments", "hostile environments" and other words are so harmful to women, gays, minorities, etc that they should never be allowed in any circumstance. They argue that hearing an off-color joke can so traumatize a woman that she can sue her employer for millions of dollars. They argue that a racial slur can so frighten a minority student that he will fail to succeed in college. They argue, in short, that words have almost unlimited power to harm.

Unless those words are said by a rock star or actor on TV, and the ears listening are less than 18 years old. Then they say the words are powerless.

And so, I ask, how can one person really hold both of these beliefs at once? Doesn't anyone ever notice the contradiction? Doesn't it bother them?

I really have problems understanding the liberal mind at times.

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* I speak here of one specific argument for euthanasia, the "life not worth living" argument. I do not speak of euthanasia as a whole. I do have some problems with legally embracing suicide, as it opens up so many avenues for abuse, both by private citizens hoping to eliminate an unwanted relative, or by a state wishing to eliminate costly medical payments for wards of the state, but I am not speaking here of euthanasia as a whole, just this one argument. So, please, no comments here on euthanasia as a general topic, I will be addressing that in more detail later, so withhold comment until then if you don't mind.
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UPDATED 01/20/2008

Although my initial comments on the Nazi eugenics and euthanasia programs were not the main focus of this piece, while reading it again, I was struck by the way two modern liberal fixations feed into a revival of Nazi-like ideas. The first being the aforementioned euthansia program. The second is the attempt to find biological causes for homosexuality, insanity, and a host of other behaviors.

You see, the Nazis did not limit their euthanasia to the disabled, retarded and other traditional biological disorders. In the Nazi mind homosexuality, perversion, criminality, and a number of other antisocial behaviors were also biological, and so, quite logically, they began to turn their vast euthanasia apparatus against gays, sexual deviants, habitual criminals and others.

Today we see a similar biological determinist mindset among the liberals. Whether they honestly believe people are "born gay" or they are simply looking for a biological cause to shoehorn gays into the current civil rights legislation, the liberals seem to be following the Nazi model in turning behaviors into biology. Which is actually a pretty ironic position as the liberals of past generations rejected most of the biological explanations of behavior precisely because of the way those theories were abused by the Nazis.

I hope to delve into this in more detail later, as I intend to write a longer essay on our efforts to turn behaviors into biology, and explain away bad behavior with genetics.

Now, I know I am in a minority in supporting not just Stanton Peele, but also Thomas Szasz, thinking that even the category of mental illness itself is suspect, but even if you do not agree with me on that, the whole idea that finding a biological cause for behavior is still obviously suspect.

To give only one example before I write my full essay:

Let us assume that homosexuality is biological in origin. (I think it is not, but just for this example, let us assume it is.) Does that change anything? Heterosexuality is biological as well, yet we expect heterosexuals to refrain from assaulting every woman they find attractive, or from cheating on their wives. So, whether homosexuality is biological or behavioral, does it make any difference? If it is a sin to commit homosexual acts, we would still expect homosexuals to refrain from acting on their desires, whatever the origin of their urges, so finding a "gay gene" would change nothing. Likewise, if gays in the military would disrupt morale or discipline, would that disruption suddenly vanish if the cause of homosexuality were proved to be genetic? None of the arguments for excluding homosexuals from certain activities, as well as religious arguments for limiting homosexual participation, change just because homosexuality turns out to be genetic. The liberal belief that biology equals exoneration is absurd.

Well, as I said, I hope to write much more on that later, I just wanted to point out how frighteningly similar today's liberals are in their fixations to the National Socialist  movement. Not that they are destined to become Nazis, nor do I claim they have Nazi tendencies, but it is a bit scary that the left wing of today could be setting the stage for a future neo-Nazi movement, and, still more worrying, it is clear they are completely unaware that such a movement is a logical outcome of their beliefs.