Debating with Liberals
Posted on April 26, 2007
Filed Under Liberalism |
I’ve had quite a bit of fun recently debating with people on the “liberal” side of the social framework, mostly using the comment threads from their own blogs. I find commenting on liberal blogs to be a particularly cathartic experience. It’s a great outlet for the closet socio-political commentator inside me.
There are a few things that I find curious, however.
First, I have to clarify the definition of liberal. In today’s world, the characterization of “liberal” means something diametrically opposite to what it meant back in the times of, say, Jefferson. Today, the term has been usurped by left-wing propagandists to disguise their true natures and identities. In reality, today’s liberalism is a misnomer that attempts to disguise what can only accurately be described as permissiveness. So when you read me using the term “liberal,” you should understand it to mean “permissive.”
It’s important to understand that definition first so we can better understand the true intentions of liberals of today.
Liberal rhetoric is replete with suggestion that everything they do is founded in some sense of moral authority or superiority. The truth, however, is that they don’t actually believe in morality of any kind. Rather, they subscribe to the philosophy most recently attributed to Carl Rogers, but that has two hundred year old roots in Jean Jacques Rousseau. That philosophy, in simplified terms, is this: “if it feels good, it is good.” According to this philosophy, which is the secret mantra of modern liberalism, there is no absolute right or wrong. Liberals claim to have the corner on morality, yet they deny the “power thereof,” so to speak. In other words, they suggest that it’s somehow possible for individuals to define their own personal, private morality, irrespective of the moral sensibilities of others, and that they should be free to pursue paths consistent with their personal moral definitions without consequence from other individuals or government. Take, for example, this comment from a particularly venomous liberal:
“The pursuit of happiness is what is stated on the constitution, and freedom is necessary for that pursuit to even begin. This is what Liberals fight for, freedom. Freedom to choose and decide ones own morality without governmental interference, without force, without fear.”
The “power” that they deny, though–the very force of morality–is that, by definition, morality presupposes the recognition of absolutes of right and wrong, as well as a higher authority than one’s own interpretation to define those absolutes.
In simpler terms, morality cannot be weighed on a sliding scale. If it could, then liberals would have to concede the right of some to disregard any considerations of right and wrong all together on moral grounds. By that reckoning, since I disagree with the liberal philosophy and I see it as a material threat to humanity, I could claim the moral obligation (remember, this is my own private morality) to remove any liberal from humanity to ensure the perpetuation of the species. So on moral grounds, I could kill all liberals and, by their own philosophy, I could not rightly be punished for it.
A great, real-world example of this moral sliding scale with which liberals are trying to weigh (and in this case legislate) the social issues of the world is revealed in this exchange between Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania):
http://www.nrlc.org/news/1999/NRL1199/boxsan.html
Notice how Senator Boxer, who obviously espouses the personal moral position of “pro-choice,” is unable to answer the most basic question about the moral ambiguity in the partial-birth abortion procedure. As Senator Santorum backs her more and more into a corner by asking her to specifically define what she means by “born” (as in “the baby is born when the baby is born”), she eventually refuses to continue with the line of questioning. She knows she’s beat. She can’t draw a clear line on defining the issue of the debate because, according to liberal governing philosophy, there is no such thing as a clear line. It must be left open to interpretation.
To me, since so many outspoken liberals are lawyers or university professors by profession, it seems apparent that this “sliding scale” system of measurement is designed really for one thing: to create a platform (platform = work = money) for themselves. Someone has to interpret all this ambiguity, don’t they?
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