Remedial School for the Critical Thinking of Liberals
I read this essay linked from fark.com (silly news site with interesting links all over the web, highly recommended). Its basic premise is that liberals are naive and narcissistic. He raises some interesting points, but I think makes a couple of subtle errors that conservatives always make when naysaying liberals.
“Liberals are always looking for excuses.” That is, they excuse bad behavior or failure as the fault of society, education, television etc. Many liberals will take this sophmoric bashing and fail to achieve an argumentative upper hand. I sometimes wonder if they have not been properly schooled or had their weapons sharpened to the precise edges necessary to do battle. Conservatives love to slice and dice you on the value of your words. A-ha, I nailed you through that chink in your armor. You must be precise. Your imprecision is your failing. Your anger unbalances you, grasshopper, or some such nonsense.
Your taxes benefit the rich!
Who are these rich?
Your policies hurt poor people.
Which policies?
Sometimes liberals have a difficult time answering these questions. They feel they are right, but haven’t polished their game. Conservatives know this and set back at a safe distance hurling precise questions to which they know their opponent has no answer.
You see, liberals feel things. I’m going to tell you how to feel things and still make your case. I’m going to give you a tool straight from the golf bag of your conservative rival. You are going to use this club and you are going to beat him with it.
Let us begin.
First, yes, I agree with you. There are never excuses. People make choices and some of them are bad. They sometimes make these wrong choices because of things in their environment, but there are never excuses. You are never excused from abiding by the law. You are never excused for not giving your children all the possible advantages that they deserve. You are never excused for your failings. So, yes, I agree with you Mr. Conservative. People should stop making excuses, looking for ways to peddle cupability to some other unlucky soul or business or institution. You are not taking responsibility for yourself and what is worse, you are handing your power to that which does not have the right to retain power from you. You are setting yourself up as a hapless victim by continuing to abdicate your hard earned volition, your precious vehicle for success, your humanity. You have become just one of “them,” one of those powerless, victimized masses to whom much happens but the flurry of motion disguises the true lack of forward movement.
To you, you tragic characters in a tragic play, I say, you are not absolved. You are not excused. You are not through.
What a wonderful point you make. I couldn’t have made it better myself.
Good, because now I am going to ask what are you going to do about it?
Do about it? Why nothing, you said it yourself, people must take personal responsibility.
But you see, we have a problem. This country has a problem. This problem is here and now.
A problem created by you liberals. You and your social programs. You’ve created a cycle of dependency, a cycle of crime, a cycle of poverty.
It’s OUR fault? I thought it was THEIR fault?