Hi all,
I thought I would throw this out and see what kind of response I got.
Why I distrust liberals and people who populate the Left Wing:
(Let me add that I don't really trust Right-Wingers either)
I will candidly admit that no person, no matter how insightful, is capable of understanding every aspect of human behavior because it is something that does not always follow a predictable pattern. Each individual has a lifetime to be influenced by a myriad of environmental, cultural, and social occurrences which(even with conformity running rampant in my opinion) makes every person somewhat unique. I realize that by attempting to neatly categorize a large amount of people, I might fall prey to generalization. But even with this admission, I still think that my observations are applicable to a large number of people who call themselves "liberal".
At a brief glance, liberalism appears very noble and altruistic. I believe that people who are liberals truly do elicit genuine concern for humanity. They believe that it is necessary for us to try to correct the injustices and inequities that plague mankind. However, I have noticed some glaring weaknesses in their thinking that I cannot ignore. There are various types of liberals. I have decided to narrow my descriptions to the slight, moderate, and extreme liberals, with the hopes that most of the other liberals that populate the world will fall somewhere in between.
Slight liberals have beliefs that hover more towards the center of the political spectrum. They espouse all of the standard centerpiece liberal beliefs (equal treatment of all people no matter what their personal beliefs, economic standing, etc.. may be). They respect freedom and demand that it be recognized. Ironically, the most recognizable trait of the slight liberal is apathy. They believe in these things and would like to see them instituted so that everyone in the world may benefit from them, but most of them don't do anything about it. They just won't admit that they are self-centered. Most of the time their beliefs are purely aesthetic things which please their sensibilities and idle concerns, but that are not powerful enough to elicit concerted action.
As someone gets more towards the moderate and extreme liberal beliefs, they have a tendency to impose what I call the "Oppression Dialectic" on their observations of the world.
The moderate liberals use a more muted version of the "Oppression Dialectic". They examine situations and seperate the participants into two parties; the people "on top" or the winners(who possibly have unfair advantages), and the people who just couldn't succeed in the said situation, who deserve pity and sympathy. Moderate liberals don't like to see disadvantaged people experience disappointment, failure, and hardship(strangely enough, they sometimes take pleasure in seeing people they construe as being "on top", fail.). They have a tendency to disapprove of winning; because when someone wins there is somebody who didn't win. Usually they sympathize with the perceived loser.
I can understand the moderate liberal's desire(which arises out of empathy) to shield people from disappointment and to root for the underdog, but attempting to eliminate failure from the human experience is not natural. I think that failure is a valuable part of life. It has the capability of teaching important lessons such as humility and wisdom. If looked back upon with a clear head, failure can help a person determine what they need to do or change in order to succeed. People were not meant to float through life while experiencing no disappointments. If all that everyone experiences is a rigged and controlled success, where failure is abolished and everyone is equal, it is not true success. It is a sham. You are taking a person's right to pursue what they want and what they want to achieve, and relegating them to a forced equality with their fellow man. Sure, you raise some people out of the depths of failure, but you also limit other people's access to success and it's fruits. I can think of nothing that is more unnatural, restricting, stifling, and insulting to human ambition and self-determination. Of all of the forms of liberalism, I think I am most qualified to talk about extreme liberalism, because I used to be heavily influenced and controlled by it. To put it bluntly; I was young and naive and I didn't thoroughly question the tenets that I excitedly embraced.
The extreme liberals utilize the "Oppression Dialectic" in a much more shrill and audacious way than the moderate liberals do. They examine a situation and seperate the participants into two parties; the power-hungry oppressors who sadistically and tyrannically pursue and wield absolute control, and the victimized and oppressed group, who have to live under such humiliating and inhumane circumstances. They always disapprove of the people they view as the oppressors and use every chance they have to discredit them. They exaggerate every mistake, shortcoming, and failure of the oppressors. They always side with the perceived underdog, and oftentimes sympathize with, attempt to justify, or outright ignore, any innappropriate behaviour of the members of the perceived oppressed community. They also exaggerate every hardship endured by, and every accomplishment of, the oppressed. Extreme liberalism can be summarized as a militant, warped, and misguided empathy that is brought about by disaffected cynicism. It is a belief system that is almost always confined to young people, because the impetuousness and irrationality that taint it are also common symptoms of youth. On a certain level, I can admire and appreciate the energy, rigor, and determination of extreme liberals. But, it is hard to ignore the lack of wisdom, open-mindedness, and level-headedness, that mark it.
The main flaw of people who have ardent beliefs is that they oftentimes believe in the correctness of their ideals so much that they will not seriously consider or review any other points of view. People who are influenced or controlled by a system of thought tend to see what they want to see and not what is actually there. Liberals are no exception.
RandalFlagg
(My first post in months. yee haww!!)
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