Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 1:55:38 PM
In my first post "
Cognitive Dissonance", I wrote about the liberal tendency to dismiss soldiers as "children" while portraying as "adult" 14 year olds seeking abortions. However, there is an even bigger cognitive dissonance in liberal belief, their view of human nature, and the relationship of those humans with government.
As I have written repeatedly, the left tends to view man as incompetent, they need to in order to justify the extensive government meddling with everyday matters. Gun control, for example, only makes sense if you think that people will be tempted by guns to commit violent or thoughtless acts. On the other hand, when the left promotes issues about which they feel strongly, such as first amendment or abortion rights, they think of people as wholly good. They argue that allowing people total freedom is sensible, as they are adults who can manage their own affairs. Even more bizarre, the left seems to think criminals are even better than normal citizens, as simply being arrested and then "reeducated" seems to be enough to cause criminals to give up a life of crime. In other words, law abiding citizens can't be trusted with guns, as they will go on a shooting spree, but those who intentionally shoot others do so only through a lack of education (or maybe "opportunity") and will turn into model citizens after a token jail stay and a bout of "education".
It gets even more confusing when it comes to government. In the liberal book, government is a source of good, a kindly elder brother to which citizens listen happily. How else to explain the belief that simply making gun ownership illegal will cause criminals to give up guns? Despite being so wrong headed that they need to be told what to eat, or what to pay employees, people can be trusted to simply obey every government edict. Well, almost every edict. The left does seem to think that when it comes to sex or abortion, this won't work. The same people who blindly obey gun control laws can't be told not to have teenaged sex, or have abortions. They will inevitably resort to the much mentioned "back alley abortion" and teens just "can't be stopped" from having sex. Likewise, they seem to think illegal aliens, who presumably will also blindly obey gun control laws, will ignore laws concerning driving, and continue to drive without licenses.
Nor does it stop there. The entire topic is chock full of absurdities. For example, if people cannot manage their own affairs, then why do those same people, when elected to office, gain the ability to manage not just their own affairs, but the affairs of everyone else? Or, why do those same incompetent people manage to elect the proper rulers who are wise enough to manage the state? Of course, the truth is, as I wrote elsewhere, that the left tends to silently assume their is an elite, competent unlike their peers, who can rule because they alone know what is right. But saying so will destroy their egalitarian, "compassionate" image, so they let this one pass in silence.
I suppose I could go on, but I think my point is clear. The political edifice of the left, built as it is upon the presumption of incompetence, along with contradictory views of man's willingness to abide by laws or behave in a civilized manner, is simply impossible to think through logically. Once you ask what the basic premises of the left are, you quickly realize they are self-contradictory.
Not that that has ever stopped anyone.
POSTSCRIPT
Rather than litter the article with links, I am posting all the relevant articles here:
The Essence of Liberalism
Arrogance and Gun Control
A Very Simple Truth
Mainstreaming hate
Our View of Our Fellow Citizens
Those Other People
Seeing People As Stupid
The Virtue of Humility
The Costs of Understanding
Man's Nature and Government
The Important Lesson of Racism
Lying Politicians and "Other People"
Two Kinds of Liberal
The Citizen Dichotomy
How Democrats Keep the Poor Poor
My Vision of Government
My Vision of Government Part II
Economic Versus Social
Inescapable Logic
Eurocentrism? Racism? Liberal Traits All
Smaller Government , Fair Weather Friends and Special Cases
The Benefits of Federalism
A Question for Liberals
Fairness and the Free Market
A Question of Perception
The Endless Cycle of Intervention
An Analogy For Government
Planning For Imperfection
The Intellectual Elite
Appealing to Arrogance
Nuclear Disarmament and Gun Control
Conservatives and the "Big Picture"
Conspiracy Theories
Pseudo-Homophobes and Silent Assent
Tolerance? Really?
Government's Abusive Behavior
Very Brief Gun Control Post
Conservatism, Incremental Change and Federalism
"Empathy" Threatens not "Justice" but Predictability
Liberal Bait and Switch
"Fair Trade"
A Question About the Two State Solution
Why Does the Public Own the Airwaves?
Great Minds?
Something to Bear in Mind
Inescapable Logic II
Living Large During the Good Times
A Strange Reaction
Acting Against Interests
It Is Possible...
Specious Argument
Keeping You Safe
Special Cases
Modern Marius and Sulla
There are certainly more than the ones linked above which relate to this topic, but I think this covers all the most important posts.